


Fata Morgana

by LadamaB



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, American Hanzo, Business, Emotional Abuse, Estranged Siblings, Exotic locations, Gen, Graphic description of panic attacks, Illustrated, Magic, Mental Abuse, Mystery, NaNoWriMo, One-Sided Attraction, Orphans, Peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-08 15:50:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12867891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadamaB/pseuds/LadamaB
Summary: “Strange things happen in the desert every day, more people drown than die of thirst.”When a nature hike goes horribly wrong, Hanzo Shimada is caught in a sudden flash flood and swept into the underground cavern system below the Colorado Plateau. With limited supplies and a random mix of useful and worthless items tucked into his bag by Genji, he is tasked with staying alive and finding a way out but there is more than meets the eye to this barren landscape. It's a race against time and a battle of wills. Does he dare play chicken with agod?





	1. To die of a broken heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silverxtiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverxtiger/gifts).



> Hello all! I present to you my NaNoWriMo. I am proud to say that I am a NaNoWriMo winner! The plan was to do illustrations to go with these but those may be added later. For now, enjoy and make sure that you comment, kudo, and bookmark!

_“Strange things happen in the desert every day, more people drown than die of thirst.”_

 

\--

 

Working for the family business had been all Hanzo had ever known. Everything began and ended with securing the future of the clan and everyone in it. Leaving Japan at the tender age of 9, his family had moved to America to expand the Shimada empire overseas and produce new opportunities to succeed. Mother and father, Hanzo and Genji; a perfect nuclear family of four with the brightest of futures imaginable waiting across the Pacific. It was the land of plenty and a promise to all who came that life could be prosperous here, but prosperity required perspiration. Nothing was ever free.

Good things came to those who worked for it and no one worked harder than Hanzo. His life had already been planned out from day one; walk the path, do well in school, receive the diploma, take your place in the well-oiled machine that was Shimada Enterprises International. Expectations were set in stone, chiseled there by the previous generation. _No exceptions._  

Everything in Hanzo’s life revolved around making the family successful and fulfilling his role as the dutiful firstborn heir. Requirements that were both a burden and a crutch, they allowed him to beg off social functions he never felt comfortable attending but also kept him from ever fully relaxing. Hanzo was notorious for never letting his hair down, especially not when he looked at the next in line, the one who would take control should anything happen to him and his father, and saw _Genji._ When Sojiro had told his sons to jump, Hanzo asked, ‘How high?’

Genji asked, _‘Why?’_

For every hero there was an anti-hero and for every hardworking child there was always the one who _wasn’t._ The one who decided to take things their own way. The younger was everything Hanzo could never be and for that, he was jealous. How was it fair that Genji could be both talented in social interactions where Hanzo lacked the tact and finesse, _and_ be able to understand business with what seemed like a natural intuition? How was that _fair?_ Genji’s grades had never been honor roll like his brother but despite how many parties he went to or how ridiculously hungover the younger was when he took his finals, Genji never received anything less than a B.

Hanzo _hated_ him for it. Years of school spent studying every night, falling asleep at his desk because _nothing_ came easily for the older but he worked hard to pretend that it _did_ only to have Genji be blessed with the talent he tirelessly worked to emulate. Hanzo’s only blessing had _ever_ been his ambition. Where Genji lacked the determination and discipline to meet a deadline, Hanzo stepped over those stumbling blocks as if they weren’t even _there._

The older had worked every day of the last 27 years of his life to be the best and to fulfill every request set in front of him by the board of directors while Genji became the embodiment of Hanzo’s worst nightmares. He never showed up for work, he continued his partying even outside of college and well into the work years. The younger brother seemed to exist for no reason other than to stress the older to the maximum. In a business like Shimada, despite how clearly the nepotism ran, there was only _so much strain_ it could take. There was only so much that _any_ business could take when one of the highest members of management would only _barely_ show up to work. Something had to _give._

When Sojiro died, everything that they had worked for slid directly into the _gutter._ Hanzo had been unanimously appointed to the head of the company, a shiny plaque that labeled him the new CEO hanging on the same wall his father had stared at for 18 years in America. A wall in an office that Hanzo wasn’t prepared for, a position in a company he was barely a part of, with a family who expected him to be everything his father was and _more._ Coming to power wasn’t supposed to happen until he was much older. _Hanzo wasn’t ready yet._

There were supposed to be _years_ of grooming involved before he ever even _touched_ this executive position. When the oldest son was moved up into the spot of commander-in-chief, the second son was promoted to his right hand man as was expected of him. That was how the company had functioned for the last _hundred years,_ even when they had been based in Japan.

The first day of Hanzo’s new life without a father, without a superior, without a path to walk down that made _any sense,_ his second in command had not shown up for work.

_Again._

They called it a ‘stress heart attack’, or a takotsubo cardiomyopathy. When he’d woken up in the hospital, that’s what the doctors said happened to him. The stress of losing a father, inheriting a company and being let down by the one person he needed there _most_ had snowballed into something that had leveled the man to the ground. Hanzo had been left lying on his back for precisely 28 minutes before the secretary had noticed that he was in trouble, struggling to even _breathe_ as his heart violently twisted inside the pericardium, threatening to rip itself _apart._ The one time he had needed for his younger brother to actually be there, _Genji had failed him._

Perhaps this was why the condition was also called the ‘broken heart syndrome’.

Hanzo had laid in bed with wires all over his chest, blood drawn every three hours looking for some kind of damage to the tissue. Despite the elevated blood levels that _validated_ his experience, there were no other markers to even _prove_ that it had ever _happened._ No apparent damage to the heart, no symptoms. His blood pressure had been the _textbook definition_ of perfect. The only evidence to be found were his memories of being trapped on the ground gasping like a fish and a single elevated point of care troponin from where they had rushed him to the ER. _That’s it._

Well, except for the way that it had affected Genji.

That had been a year ago. The same man who had never shown up on time for work _a day in his life_ suddenly started to arrive _early,_ take on more projects, go above and beyond for the company in ways no one could have fathomed Genji _capable of._ He refused to let Hanzo do anything physically strenuous or demanding. He’d very nearly _shit kittens_ when he found out that as a part of Hanzo’s stress relief therapy that he’d been training for a marathon.

Any time the work became too taxing, Genji would whisk it away from the older brother as if just the mere mention of stress was too much, but all of these things that his otouto did in order to try and make his life easier only served to frustrate Hanzo _more._ Where had he been back when Father had died? Was this only guilt? Would Genji just vanish when the guilt went away? How long until Genji abandoned him _again?_

It seemed that only time would tell. As the one year anniversary of his heart attack came closer and closer, Genji began to bump around the office with brochures for travel agencies. One for a cruise which had been _promptly_ turned down by the older sibling. They didn’t have time to leave the country even for a day, much less two _weeks._ Another brochure came for Vegas. While the base of operations was in Phoenix, neither of the brothers needed to be _anywhere near_ the gambling capital of the world. Genji had a _nasty_ gambling addiction and Hanzo hated bright lights and thick crowds.

One after the other after the other, brochures were shot down and ideas rejected until finally Genji had just walked in one morning and dropped a pair of backpacks on the ground, announcing that they were taking a day off.

That was how they ended up _here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to Silverxtiger for being my rock through this BS. It's gonna get pretty rocky through here so hold on to your seats. 
> 
> Try listening to Galantis - Dancin' to the Sound of a Broken Heart
> 
> That's all from me for now!
> 
> ~Ladie


	2. Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." ~ E. Scott Fitzgerald_
> 
>  
> 
>  The rubber meets the road and the gaping maw between siblings becomes a smidge smaller before widening indefinitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for that intense peril! I'm so excited, are you excited?

“Are you sure this is the place?” Hanzo asked, looking around as they walked into the small stucco structure situated just a few miles from the historic Route 66, tying his long black hair up into a high ponytail to try and escape the heat. There had been nothing for miles on the drive in save for the rocky formations and patches of scrub weed here and there. This wasn’t near _any_ of the normal tourist locations and that made Hanzo _nervous._ Though, to be fair, Hanzo was usually some brand of nervous and even had the prescription to _prove it._

“Yeah, this is the same place as on the website. The building looked a lot less _shitty_ in the picture, but this is the place.” Genji returned, adjusting the thick headband he was wearing to keep his shorter hair pushed back and out of his face. Deciding to do an activity like this one had been difficult for Genji, since it was a nature hike, but if Hanzo liked to get out and stretch his muscles to relax? It would be worth it. The doctors said that exercise was good for your heart anyway so that would be two birds with one stone.

“There’s _no one here!”_ Hanzo hissed, pulling his backpack higher up onto one shoulder as he looked around the tiny booth. The multi-paned glass window behind an abandoned desk branded with ‘Wilderness Tours!’ showed nothing but miles of open desert and another parking lot sitting as empty as the one in the front. It looked like at one point a few of the panes in the window had been broken and replaced with glass blocks, only serving to add to the _ambiance_ of ‘not quite right’ that this place gave off to the already overly anxious older sibling. _There was no one here._ By the layer of dust sitting over the sparsely filled rack of pamphlets, no one had been here in a _long time._

“If you _had_ go on a vacation, why couldn’t we go _home?”_ Hanzo asked, looking over at his brother with a severe frown that had become his resting expression over the last decade of Genji’s on-again-off-again presence in his life. They had once been the best of friends and now it felt like they _barely_ knew each other.

“Home? What’s the point of going home?” The younger turned around from where he was _absolutely_ touching some of the ‘employee only’ marked logbooks behind the desk. Minding his own business had never been Genji’s strong suit. “I mean, I’ve got Soba but what’s the point of going back to _your_ tiny ass apartment?”

Hanzo rolled his eyes, turning away once more to look out the window. He had a small, studio apartment that was large enough to suit his needs and no more. For a moment, he was quiet and wondered if Genji really _didn’t get it._ Was he the only one who wanted to go back to Japan?

“Home, Genji. _Hanamura.”_ The older reminded him, pursing his lips and tapping the long, piano fingers on his bicep in annoyance.

“Uh, I hate to break this to you, Bro,” Genji snorted, shaking his head while closing the books back and finally coming out from behind the counter he didn’t belong near _anyway._ “But the Castle is a _museum_ now. Remember? We couldn’t go back there if we wanted to.”

Quiet fell over the pair of them. Hanzo turned away, uncomfortable at being reminded _again_ that he could never go home and Genji _hating_ to be the guy who kept raining on his brother’s parade. The uncomfortable silence stretched out for _eons_ between them before Hanzo finally pursed his lips and looked back. He’d deny it to the day he died but Genji could have _sworn_ he was _pouting._

“Who’s ‘Soba’?” The older questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“My bearded dragon!” He replied, chortling and taking out his phone to flip through pictures. When Genji turned the device back around, Hanzo rolled his eyes and looked away. “What? I love my Soba! I had this lady on etsy make him a sweater-- He _understands_ me. Don’t give me that look, Hanzo. You’ve got a pet _too.”_

“I have _fish,_ Genji. I have an automatic feeder and _everything._ They’re not _pets,_ they’re a _screensaver._ I could be gone for a _week_ and they’d never even _notice.”_ Genji recoiled visibly at the ferocity of Hanzo’s rebuke. He couldn’t help but feel like he’d stepped on something _sensitive_ but he just couldn’t figure out _what._ “Where _are_ these guides?” Hanzo snarled again, wound up tighter than a string on a bow.

“Well, maybe they’re just running late?” Genji placated gently, gesturing around him. “The lights and AC are on. They wouldn’t bother to cool an abandoned building, aniki. Just have some patience. I know you’re aggravated but have you drank enough water? Are you feeling alright? Do you need to sit down--”

“I’m fine!” Hanzo snipped out to his younger brother, pulling away from the worried arm around his shoulders and pushed Genji back with a hand right over the tri-force symbol on his obnoxious green shirt. “Don’t _touch_ me.”

“Jesus, Han! You don’t have to snip at me for _caring!”_ He fell back a few steps, hands out to his sides in a mock surrender.

“Well that would require you to _actually care,_ wouldn’t it?” Hanzo snarled and shook his head, turning away from the younger to look over the gaudy southwestern decorations sitting atop the pamphlet rack. Was that cactus made of plastic? What self respecting organization had a _fake_ cactus in the middle of the Arizona?

“I _do_ care! I know you can’t tell, but I _do._ You’re my brother and I don’t always do a good job of showing it but I _love you_ and I’m going to _worry._ Deal with it.” Genji fired right back, retreating back to the desk to start looking for signs of someone having gone out for lunch instead of just digging around aimlessly. At 10:30 in the morning, it didn’t seem likely but it was as good an excuse as any to get some distance between him and Hanzo. Hanzo’d never been a big fan of physical contact from anyone; the response would vary from mild verbal lashing to a more violent reaction.

Once upon a time, Genji had been the exception to that rule.

Despite his best efforts, Hanzo still seemed to hate him. The younger brother had done everything in his power to try and mend the rift that had formed between them over the years but some things _never changed._

He sighed, watching his older brother out of the corner of his eye. They used to be close. Hanzo had been his best friend and closest confidant. Born three years apart, they had gone through _everything_ together. Hanzo had always been the shining example to Genji of what he was supposed to be. From the way his older brother had nothing but A’s in school, or how his piano recitals were all Sojiro would ever talk about, or how he made contracts so artfully and mercilessly it was as if he’d fired an arrow through the heart of a company to pluck out just the parts he wanted; Hanzo was everything Genji could never be.

The older picked up the first pamphlet his hands found, anything to ignore the pachyderm currently trumpeting around and flattening the furniture. _Navajo: Myths and Legends of the Southwest._ Living in the Bible belt for most of his adult life, there weren’t too many things that Hanzo believed as truth. He’d had one too many ‘bless your heart’s for his taste. Despite being Shinto like his parents, and all that entailed with Kami and the like, Hanzo still managed to remain skeptical of any higher powers.

 _‘Contradictory at best.’_ Genji tried not to scoff as he drug his eyes away. “Why are you even reading that, Hanzo?” He asked, unable to leave well enough alone. That had always been his problem, Genji never knew when to shut up.

“Because it is interesting.” Hanzo returned, shooting a sharp glare across the dingy tourist shop before looking back down to his pamphlet.

“Can’t be _that_ interesting,” The younger challenged, smirking some as he leaned onto the tiny desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “If you were _really_ reading it, you’d be wearing your glasses.”

“Genji,” Hanzo growled as he closed the pamphlet and slid it into one of his cargo pockets alongside the small notebook that usually stayed in his briefcase. Without his normal accessory, Hanzo found himself without a barrier to put between himself and his brother. They had avoided having this conversation for an entire year and if Hanzo had his way, it would be even longer.

With a sigh, the younger pushed off the desk and rubbed his face. “I just don’t understand you any more--”  
  
“As if you ever _did.”_  
  
Genji grit his teeth, but continued on, “--but I _want_ to. Aniki, I _miss_ you. I know I screwed up but you… you always seemed to have it handled!” He spread his arms out as if to willingly crucify himself for whatever Hanzo had to say.

“I am _not_ having this conversation.” The older brother stubbornly put more distance between them, looking out the window while wrapping his arms around himself.

“But we _need_ to have this conversation.” Genji pushed on, continuing to cautiously walk forward.

 _“Genji.”_ Hanzo warned in a dangerously low voice, shooting a harsh expression over his hunched shoulders.

“I _never_ meant for that to happen, Hanzo! I never meant to hurt you. I would _not_ hurt you on purpose. You’re my brother--”

Hanzo spun around on his heel, “‘Your _brother?!’_ Do you think you can just say some pretty words and it'll all just _go away?!_ Where _were_ you? When Father died, where were _you?_ Why weren’t you _there for me?_ I _needed you,_ Genji. I _needed you and you were gone!”_

“I didn’t mean to miss work, Hanzo! I wanted to be there I- I got _drunk_ because my _dad died._ I’m an _alcoholic!”_ The pain of admitting it was plain on his face as the younger brother fished around in his pocket, retrieving a green coin from his pocket and brandished it like a weapon. “I had been trying to get better but--”

“What is _that?”_ The older’s voice was worn thin, grave and exhausted from playing pretend every day while he tried to _forget._

“It’s a sobriety coin, Han...” The younger’s voice cracked as he looked down and flipped the coin over in his fingers to read the back. “I’ve been 11 months without a single drink. I get my 1 year token tonight.”Tonight was the anniversary of Hanzo’s heart attack. He hissed in a pained breath, staggering back a few inches until his broad shoulders connected with the glass window as his dark eyes searched the outdated geometric carpet pattern for answers. _Any_ answers.

All this time, Hanzo had thought Genji just didn’t _care._

“Hanzo? Are you… alright?” His voice was closer now and Hanzo looked up just in time to see an arm trying to wrap itself around his shoulders.

“Don’t _touch me!”_ The older screeched, shoving Genji back with enough force that he slid back on the carpet a few inches on his ass, eyes wide in shock.

They sat there suspended in that moment for what could have been an instant or an eternity, both of them trying to understand what had just happened. Hanzo had never _struck_ his younger brother before.

A hesitant knock at the door caused, both brothers to spin around as the travel guide slowly walked in, waving one hand to them. “Is this a bad time because… I’m not coming back to pick you up later.”

 

 

 

 

The man standing in the doorway looked like he was right out of some kind of mixed-genre adventure flick, inwardly making Hanzo cringe. Jeans, t-shirt with some kind of logo of a flaming man that Hanzo didn’t understand, beaded bracelets with sequoia hair braided into twin tails on either side of his head that framed a confused and mildly alarmed face; this guide had to be of native descent. Cheekbones like _that_ didn’t lie, neither did the piles of turquoise and leather bracelets on each wrist.

Part of him wanted to be relieved that it would be someone with some experience out in these sands showing them around and not some _complete idiot._ The _other_ part of him realized that expecting every native to be proficient in tracking and trailblazing was like expecting every asian to be smart. As a Japanese man _from_ Japan, Hanzo would be the _first person_ to tell you that dumb asians existed.  
  
_He was looking right at one._

“No, no. This is a great time.” Genji sprung up onto his feet, dusting off the back of his white-and-green athletic pants before offering the guide a hand. “Sorry about that, I’m Shi--” Genji stopped himself and reordered the name with a light blush over the top of his high cheekbones. “Genji Shimada. I called about the tour?”

Their guide took the offered hand, noticing how Hanzo wrinkled his nose at the contact. While Genji had been too young to have more than just vague recollections of Japan and had been left home for most of their business trips, the older had clearly inherited the cultural distaste for physical contact.

“Right, you bought tickets on the site. I noticed that when I was checking the manifest this morning. Well, I’m Halháta Long Feather. Nice to meet you both, the rest of our group is already in the van.” In the van…? Well that made a lot of sense. This wasn’t the main office, it was simply a stop on the line. “If you don’t mind me asking,” Hanzo said as he picked up his backpack from the ground and threw it back over one shoulder. “Where is the main location for your tours?”

“Our main office is in Las Vegas and we have another large office in Phoenix.” Halháta explained, starting back out the door and politely held it open for the two men to walk out. “I came out and unlocked this office a few hours ago since this is the one your ticket was RSVP’d for. I don’t think anyone has picked this stop in... shit, a long time. I want to say at least a year, but don’t quote me.”

Hanzo shot a sharp glare at his brother, passing right by him on the way to the old school bus that had been refurbished into a bright blue monstrosity. _Phoenix?_ You mean that long ride in an awkwardly silent car had been _completely unnecessary?_

Again, dumb asians _absolutely_ existed.

At the very least, Genji seemed to at least have the decency to look ashamed of himself for wasting Hanzo’s time and the gas to drive out here in this heat. “This is actually the last stop on the line.” The guide commented, looking over his shoulder. “I usually hit this last before we go out and only if I have someone getting on here. You’re lucky I didn’t miss you entirely.”

One of these days, Genji was going to force him to roll his eyes so hard that they actually popped out of his head. The man had already given him a heart attack, what was one more thing going wrong at this point?

“What does Halháta mean?”

Looking back, Hanzo should have known better than to make statements that could be construed as a ‘What’s the worst that could go wrong?’ comment. _“Genji!”_ He hissed in a harsh admonition, feeling 17 again as his little brother embarrassed him in front of the college admissions board.

Luckily for Hanzo’s horrified soul, the guide didn’t seem to mind the question. “It means ‘Magpie.’ It’s.. a really long story.” He quirked his lips up, manually opening the door with both hands before stepping aside to let the men in. “And before you ask, I’m Lakota Souix. Doesn’t change the tours though, I’ll still get you to see all the cool stuff and back before dinner.”

The older brother spared their guide a tight smile, grabbing Genji tightly by the wrist and tugged him onto the bus. “What is _wrong_ with you?” The older hissed, sliding into one of the bench seats beside the window before roughly pulling Genji in behind him.

“What? I just wanted to know--”

“Did it occur to you that it might be _rude?”_ Hanzo was getting so fed up with Genji’s bullshit. With all the windows open, it was safe to say that this bus did not have any kind of air conditioning so the older was frantically trying to force his hair into a braid of some kind to keep it in check.

“No… What’s wrong with asking him what his name means? Should I have told him what mine meant?” Genji asked, gesturing for his brother to turn as he got up on his knees in the bus and took the hair tie from him.

Not only did stupid asians exist, it’s like they had to be _extra dumb_ in a kind of sick penance for all the especially _gifted_ asians.

Hanzo gladly turned as the bus jerked into motion and began the slow circle to turn out of the parking lot, using it as an excuse to hide his bright red face from the rest of the tour group. “I... cannot handle you right now.” He muttered miserably into his hands while he felt Genji’s fingers starting to finger comb his hair and separate it out into pieces so it could be braided back.

The younger was just counting it a win that he was allowed into Hanzo’s space. Bearing in mind that it had been a good 7 or 8 years since the last time he’d had to braid Han’s hair, Genji managed to do a decent job even with the wind whipping the raven locks around.

“Sit down, you’re doing it wrong.” Well, Genji had _thought_ he was doing a decent job. In hindsight, Hanzo could do a better job without seeing it than Genji could ever do even if he _could_ remember how.  
  
The younger sat down as Hanzo finished the braid and tucked it up into something resembling the chonmage he typically wore at the office. Once the hair was out of the way, save for that piece right in front that _refused_ to be put into any kind of hairstyle, Hanzo tucked his earbuds in and turned on music while the scenery slid by.

Huge cactus-trees, thorny bushes and short scrub as far as the eye could see. It was surprisingly beautiful out here, columns of stone rising from the broad plains of sand against a backdrop of cerulean sky and flat-top clouds. There was a certain serenity to the desert; a sort of barren peacefulness. Only the most resilient of creatures made it very far. Hanzo could only have the utmost respect for anyone who made their living out here like their tour guide did. It wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Hanzo jumped slightly as he felt a head hit his shoulder, pulling out one of his earbuds as he looked over at his younger brother. This close, you could very nearly see the places at the very tips of his hair that still seemed stained a bit green where even through the black dye and nearly a year of regrowth, the neon green hair of a rebellious young man still shone through. That comforted Hanzo for a reason he didn’t quite understand.

“I picked that station because it was farthest from home.” Genji admitted softly, feeling the way Hanzo froze up and stared in confusion. “I wanted to try and talk to you. I never get to _talk_ to you any more.”

If they were both being honest, the brothers hadn’t truly communicated with each other in over a decade. Hanzo had gone to college and excelled; Genji had followed and nearly dropped out. If only he’d realized sooner that his otouto had a _problem_ then maybe Hanzo could have _helped._ Maybe if he hadn’t been so resentful of Genji’s freedom, he could have _done something about it--_

“Oi.”

Hanzo yelped as fingers tugged on his ear, making him growl and bat those hands away. “What?” The older snapped without the previous fire, though the scowl was every bit as deeply set in his features.

“Whatever you’re thinking about? _Stop._ I can hear you blaming yourself from over here.” Genji snorted, crossing his arms and shifting a few times to get comfortable on Hanzo’s shoulder once more.

“I can’t help thinking we’re wasting time. There’s _work_ to be done.” It was only a partial lie. If they’d been going home to Japan, it wouldn’t _matter_ to Hanzo how much work there was to be done.

“And the work will still be there when we get _back.”_ Genji gave a shrug, content to lay there and close his eyes for a short nap. _“Relax._ You work too hard.”

It seemed a leopard couldn’t change his spots.

Hanzo sighed and put his earbud back in as he turned back to the window, appreciating the scenery once more. For some reason, in his mind's eye, the last thing he expected when he went out to the desert was to see so many plants but there was a surprising amount of brush. He saw a few scurrying animals in there every so often, a large black crow even keeping pace with the bus for a few minutes.

They had already spent all morning in the car, what was a few more hours together? Between heat, the rhythmic rumble of the bus engine and the soft snores of Genji, Hanzo laid his own head atop his younger sibling’s and drifted off before he even realized he had closed his eyes.

 

\--

 

As anyone who has ever slept in a school bus will tell you, refurbished or not, there is a certain amount of instant karma that comes from trying to rest on the beasts. The fact of it was that between the vibration of movement and the _insane_ upright angle at which the seats are made, the entire thing was quite the unpleasant experience.

Genji was the first one to wake as they pulled off the side of the road. The swaying of the vehicle caused him to groan and rub his face where that single bit of hair Hanzo could never quite be rid of passed over his nose. What a wakeup call, ‘Surprise! Good morning sunshine, time for your face to itch.’ When the younger violently rubbed his nose, that woke the older up with a noise of frustration.

“Would you sit still?” Hanzo growled, rolling his shoulders back and trying to ignore the crack that issued from them when he did. _Why_ did they have to do _this_ of all things? He hadn’t opened his eyes, still far too tired for that as the heat of the desert sun sapped his energy. What had possessed Genji to make their family outing a trip out _here?_

“I can’t. Your hair is in my face… It’s making my nose itch.” Genji whined, finally having to pull away and grimacing as his slightly tanned cheek came unglued from the sweaty pale skin in the crook of Hanzo’s shoulder. _Gross_. Looking around as he heard the sound of chatter and feet moving, the younger Shimada realized that they had made it to the stop anyway and it was time to get off the bus.

Luckily for them both, Hanzo also started to notice this quickly and groaned as he plucked at his sticky clothing. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. _Why_ are we doing this Genji? There had to be another way to _bond_ that didn’t involve heat and sweat and gross.”

“The best ways to bond always involve heat and sweat and gross, Hanzo. Haven’t you ever seen _Holes?”_ Genji replied, flashing his aniki a cheeky smile as he offered the man a hand to help him get up. “I get to be Stanley Yelnats.”

“Of _course_ I’ve seen _Holes._ I’m the one who owned the VHS, remember?” He snipped, looking outside and realized that at some point they’d come off of an actual paved street and onto gravel side roads. The constant bouncing of the bus had caused his tailbone and back to _ache._

“And why do you get to be Stanley? You’re shorter.” Hanzo grimaced as he took the hand and felt his back peeling away from the pseudo leather of the bus seat. On the plus side, there was now a breeze back there that hadn’t been there before. On the down side, they had barely done anything and his back was already soaked in sweat. _Ew._

The pair began to disembark, Hanzo grabbing both their backpacks from the floorboards and tucking into the line of people getting off behind Genji. “It’s only an inch, Hanzo. I’m only shorter by a single _inch.”_ That single inch had been a point of contention between them ever since they were very young. Hanzo was proud of being taller than his brother and kept his ‘big brother’ status while Genji though it was ridiculous and maintained that such a miniscule height difference could _never_ make a difference.

“So? I’m still taller and older so _I_ get to be Stanley.” Hanzo smirked, offering the appropriate backpack to Genji while they filed off the bus, straight past their guide. Getting out to actually loiter around with the other members of the group, Hanzo realized that there actually wasn’t a terribly large party here. The people gathered was a motley mix of young and old but they all seemed to be tourists from within the country. It might have seemed like there were more heads when they initially walked onto the bus but right now Hanzo was only estimating 10 or 12 people standing out on the sand.

“Alright group!” Their guide smiled, pearly white teeth accented by the clear tawny skin and spots over his cheeks that reminded Hanzo of freckles, if freckles were lighter than the skin tone rather than darker. Genji seemed _enchanted_ by the man, if the stupid grin he got on the face whenever he was near was anything to go by. Hanzo would be the first to admit that he seemed nice enough and the biggest selling factor had to be the _height._ This guy was tall as hell; at _least_ 6’3”.

“We’re going to be heading out into the desert from here. I picked this spot because we’re going to be able to see some lovely rock formations and the desert gullies. Remember to stay close to your buddy. If you came with someone, congratulations! _That’s_ your buddy. If not, find one. It’s always a good idea to buddy up when you’re in the desert. This might not be the Mojave but we are right next door and safety is always the most important thing when you’re out here.” Halháta smiled, putting jewelry-laden hands on his hips. “Right now the time is fifteen-hundred. We’re not going to be out here too terribly long, the heat just won’t allow for it. Make sure you drink your water. Don’t _chug_ but keep a constant eye on how much you have consumed. The first sign of dehydration is dry mouth.”

“I must be dehydrated.” Genji mumbled to his older sibling as they stood inside the group of tourists, “Because I’d like a taste of that tall drink of water.”

It was really too bad that Hanzo couldn’t audibly groan in this group. He gave a quick jab to Genji’s side with his elbow, shooting him a nasty glare before looking back at the tour guide. Someone _save_ him from his brother’s shitty sense of humor. If there _is_ a God, strike him _down._

Looks like God must be out on a smoke break.

The guide began to walk along a barely visible trail marked by painted wooden stakes toward the nearby formation, leading their group down between two walls of beautiful red stone. Hanzo realized in annoyance that Genji’s comment had caused him to lose the tail-end of whatever their guide had been saying. Hopefully it wasn’t too important.

“As we walk, make sure you keep an eye out for glyphs in the stone.” Halháta spoke, getting an excited murmur from the other tourists in the group while they walked. “The reason for these glyphs is currently unknown. Some people think they’re nothing in the world but Native American graffiti to mark their place. The tin hats are convinced that they’re more supernatural than that. Anthropologists lean more heavily toward the glyphs being a way of recording hunts and patterns in the seasons. Whatever the reason, they are out here.”

The guide walked up to a portion of the wall that he had marked with a stake painted in white reflective paint, pointing to a spot on the wall where a barely recognizable stick animal of some kind could be seen carved from a blackened spot just beneath a rocky outcropping. “This is an example of some of the glyphs we might see today and it’s just a small reason why this region is so fascinating.”

As loathe as Hanzo was to admit it, he _was_ fascinated by it. The guide continued walking them along. “Coming up on your left is the Joshua Tree. Yucca brevifolia as it’s actually named, this is the only place you find these kinds of cactus. These things can live for hundreds of years and some examples have even lived for thousands of years... so this one is almost as old as my dad.” The guide gave a cheeky wink back at them and Hanzo found himself chuckling along with the rest of them while their small party started to hike up the side of the next hill.

This place was _beautiful._ Rugged and unkempt, there was something almost tangible as he walked past another stone wall with a few glyphs marked on it. Up the cliff side, careful to keep between the wooden stakes and the wall, Hanzo breathed in the fresh air tinted in dust and something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. At risk of sounding like a broken record, the feral landscape of this forgotten place was his favorite part of living in America.

On and on the group marched, the guide’s voice putting him at ease and lulling them all into a sense of safety. One foot after the other, even the heat was forgotten. Genji’s chattering was greeted with his own; the two brothers seeming to finally mend whatever rift they’d had between them. A weight that Hanzo had borne for so many years that he’d actually forgotten it was _there_ finally lifted from his shoulders while they laughed and trekked up the cliffside. It was an intricate ease of finally placing two pieces together in harmony where before they had conflicted. Two arias easing into a symphony.

They sat down in the shade of the largest cliff in a makeshift rest place near several large boulders that stood almost as if plucked up by a giant and placed there out of nothing. A protein bar in one hand, his canteen in the other, Hanzo leaned over the oddly shaped stone to grin at his younger sibling.

“All I’m saying is that you should try to get his number. Honestly, Genji, I haven’t seen you this enamored with anyone since you met that monk on the bus and decided to convert to public transport for a month and a half.” Hanzo snickered, taking another bite from his bar while he watched Genji stammer.

“I don’t know, Han. What if he’s got a boyfriend? What if he’s _straight?”_ Genji hissed, coloring in over his nose and cheeks in a way he only _wished_ was a sunburn. It was no use, the older saw right through the ruse and recognized it for the blush that it was. “Or what if he doesn’t like _asians?”_

“You’ll never know unless you ask.” Hanzo smirked, taking a sip of his water and screwing the cap back onto it before popping the last bit of his snack into his mouth. Watching Genji flounder was the single most entertaining thing he’d seen in _weeks._ There had been a time in their lives when Genji had been confident enough to walk up to the hottest girl in the bar and hit on her. Not _only_ would he hit on her, Hanzo would have to awkwardly explain to their father why he was escorting a woman out the next morning.

To think, he was afraid of their guide with his mildly curling hair and outdated sense of style. It was ridiculous and Hanzo _loved_ it. “Just _ask_ him, Genji. What is the worst that could happen? You might never _see_ him again. What happened to all that legendary confidence?”

The younger hit him with a withering glare, looking away and scuffed the toe of his neon green running shoe against the ground. “Most of the time it was _liquid._ You know? I couldn’t _be_ that confident if I wasn’t at least a little bit drunk. I’m pretty sure I spent most of my 21st year some shade of wasted.”

Well, that would explain a lot.

“Well… Today is a new day. You like him, go ask him.” He smiled, hearing what sounded like rumbling off in the distance. He didn’t quite know what to think of it and it only happened once so the older ignored the sound, packing his canteen back into his bag.

Genji’s lips twisted, twitching a few times as he considering telling Hanzo all the different ways he could go _fuck himself_ but alas, the older was right. Not that it was any surprise, Hanzo usually was. So he steeled himself, wobbling front to back on his heels before heading toward their guide where he was sitting all by his lonesome on a smaller stone eating a sandwich.

At least Han had to admit that his younger brother had good taste. When the guide smiled brightly and scooted over on his rock to offer Genji a place to sit, Hanzo felt a small portion of his heart rip asunder. Another thing that Hanzo had forgotten, though he didn’t know how, was the way his brother’s entire _body_ seemed to perk up and joy _radiated_ off of him when he was truly happy. It had been ages since he’d even seen the _ghost_ of this elation; a year since even the mockery of happiness had fled his otouto. It hurt because Hanzo realized he hadn’t even _noticed_ when his brother had become something less than genuinely happy. How could something so obvious have escaped him for so long?

They say hindsight is 20/20.

Hanzo tucked his wrapper away, looking around them at the way the ground sloped further down toward the sandy basin further below in what seemed to be a natural valley. He had to get away from here. Everything was just _too much_ and he had to get some air. In that single moment of realization, a knife had twisted itself so far between his ribs that it was tickling up next to places that hadn’t felt that much pain since their father died. Han just prayed he wasn’t having another heart attack.

His feet carried him along the valley, down toward the rocks below. The sound of a crow crying directed his eyes up toward the dark clouds that had _not_ been there mere moments before. The rumbling was closer now…

If they’d been listening to the guide earlier, they would have known about the dangers of the desert. He might have _known_ better than to walk down into such a low place in the stone, so close to where the cavern they’d been looking down into continued on into the sand. If he had been paying attention, perhaps he might have _realized_ what was happening.

If Hanzo hadn’t sent his brother to distract the guide, perhaps they could have prevented it.

The oldest Shimada was too far away to hear the guide by the time rushing water hit him. Hundreds of pounds of force full of rocks and silt smacked Hanzo so hard that it swept him right off his feet, rain pouring through the desert at a breakneck speed, carrying away anything and _anyone_ that was misfortunate enough to be caught in its wake.

He _thought_ he heard Genji cry out his name. He _thought_ he felt a hand grabbing for his as he clung to the stone just outside the gorge as more and more and _more_ water poured from out of nowhere. It pummeled his face, pouring down his nose and mouth and made him choke and gasp for air. Hanzo reached for that hand, desperately feeling around with his mouth and eyes shut tight... The hand could find no purchase as the slick mud made grasping impossible and the guide was forced to drag the younger away from the edge and leave Hanzo to be swept away. Better to lose one brother than two.

Down. Down, down, _down_ into the ravine below. Shirt being dragged up underneath the backpack, skin nearly _peeled off_ as he barreled down the stone face into the newly formed river below. Flash flood. A goddamned _flash flood_ in the middle of the _desert._ Hanzo fought to keep his head above water, a losing battle, blinking silt from his eyes and searching. _Searching_ for anything. Anything that would tell him where he was or what was going on. The only thing he could see were clouds. Clouds and unforgiving stone and that damned _crow_ that he swore crackled with as much lightning as the _sky._

The river took a sudden dive, emptying into an underground cave system and taking Hanzo with it. He took one last breath and found himself instinctively reaching for something he’d never once believed in. Everything went dark and the promise of ever making it out alive was wrenched forcibly from his grip.

 _Please_ help _me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still love you guys but believe me when I say it only gets worse from here. 
> 
> Take a look at Imagine Dragons - Believer for this chapter, specifically the Kaskade Remix, I feel like it's a fairly good fit.
> 
> Did you love my sketch of our guide? I felt like if I was gonna insert an original character I should probably give you a face. 
> 
> ~Ladie


	3. When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
> 
> When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. - Laurie Halse Anderson

Have you ever tried to inhale water? It _burns._ You would think that with the fact that the human body was made up of nearly 60% water, it would _hurt_ less to get it in places like your lungs and ears and up your nose but apparently no amount of water content in the tissues would ever make a human body prepared to _breathe_ the stuff. Especially when it contained as much silt as this slurry did.

Strange as it seemed, _bless_ Genji for his awful taste in backpacks. This gaudy yellow reflective monstrosity seemed to be, for the most part, waterproof and as a result it began to _float_ as Hanzo was pulled under the water. Getting the thing off was almost impossible. The freezing rip-tide current of water that thrust him through the underground tunnels at a breakneck speed kept throwing Hanzo against the walls of the tunnels and spinning him around so violently under the water that for a moment he worried he might just be _sick_ from the force of it all.

Humans, he decided, were not designed for this kind of travel.

He didn’t _dare_ open his eyes to try and see with the slurry that was propelling him through the Earth threatened to nearly exfoliate the skin right off his face. Hanzo only pulled the backpack to his chest and buckled it around him the best he could so that if he passed out, it would drag him to the surface of the water. He held his arms over his head to try and keep the walls of this underground chasm from bashing his head in and _prayed_ that he didn’t come to a place where the tunnel was too small for him to pass through it. The thought of getting stuck underground in this slurry? What a horrible way to die. It was just luck that as he’d been slid under, the backpack had come up behind his head to pad him from hitting the ground too hard and being knocked unconscious.

Though, he would have much rather been out cold for his inevitable demise.

Seconds that felt like minutes that felt like hours and _years_ passed, white spots forming behind his lids as the water carried him god only _knew_ how far. Here and there, sunlight seared his eyes and the backpack would bob him up to the surface where Hanzo gulped fresh air before the current would inevitably swallow him _again_ . How was water from a single downpour capable of _this?_ This couldn’t be _normal._

Just when he thought that this was _it,_ when he was sure that he was going to drown out here in the middle of the fucking _desert_ , that neon yellow life preserving waterproof bag bobbed up once more.. Up, up, up, the pressure change making his ears pop and the sudden rise spinning him head over heels in the depths and he finally broke the surface…

… and it was _dark._ Not just like the dusk that had threatened as they ate or even a nightime as if he had been in that water for ages longer than he _ever_ possibly could have been, it was _pitch black._ Hanzo’s heart stuttered to a stop in his chest as he questioned the possibility that the slurry might have somehow blinded him on that perilous trip through the Earth. Could that even be a thing? He honestly had no way to know.

The next fear, one far more logical and therefore infinitely more terrifying, that came after the initial fear was that he was _underground_ somewhere with a distinct possibility that there was no way _out._ Hanzo raised his left wrist, fighting with the backpack that he clung to for flotation to check his watch. The fancy piece of tech that used to connect to his phone had been rendered completely and totally useless by that pass through the spin cycle. That meant that his phone was likely to be worthless too. _Fuck._

The problem with not being the person who packed your own bag was that you had no way to know exactly what was in it. He didn’t know if somewhere inside there were matches or not, nor did he have any way to guarantee that he could find matches in time without sinking like a rock or filling his only means of constant and steady flotation with water and possibly killing himself in the process. While he could swim proficiently, Hanzo wasn’t sure what his surroundings looked like. If this was a room without a ledge or something for him to rest on, no matter how strong a swimmer he was, he would eventually drown.

_I just want to go home._

Hands continued to pat down the backpack, turning it in his arms while he floated along there with more and more frustration. How was this _fair?!_ To survive the fall into the caravan, to survive the passage through the ground, to even survive this _pit_ only die from something so simple as being trapped in Poe’s _Pit._ How was that _fair?_ It was only as he began to feel hot tears that were unrelated to the silt in his eyes and down his throat that Hanzo’s fingers finally closed around something at the base of of the bag. A small cylinder about 4 inches long and a good inch and a half wide, he recognized it suddenly for what it was.  
  
A glow stick. Genji had made a cheeky comment about how maybe it could convince him to go to a club if the ugly ass bag came with a glow stick. He took it all back, Genji was _brilliant_ if only inadvertently so. Hanzo fumbled with the bag, dunking his head under the gritty water more than once to get the glow stick unhooked from the backpack, cracked and shook so that it’s eerie green light would show into the cavern.

Well, first things first, he wasn’t blind. That was a relief, if only a small one.

The second thing he realized was that this cavern _literally sparkled._ Hanzo sucked in a breath as his eyes widened, looking around so sharply that he nearly slid under the water _again_ at the sudden wonder presented to him. The natural stone seemed to be filled to the brim with quartz causing it to glimmer and twinkle like millions of tiny, clustered stars in what used to be a barren sky. Stalactites hung from the roof of the cave, only dispersing the light even further while Hanzo began to slowly swim toward what appeared to be a small ledge in the darkness, mapping the constellations in this crystalline universe with his eyes. Glyphs, dozens of them, marked out in some unknown substance that had forced the humidity laden cave to grow hundreds of lines of quartz in the shapes left by civilization past. It was very likely that no one had seen this room in hundreds of years, if not even longer, and yet here he was. At least if he had to die, it wasn’t an altogether terrible place to go.

Hanzo began to slowly wade over to the edge of this seemingly bottomless pit of water, careful to move in such a way that he didn’t accidentally spear his foot or leg on any growing stalagmites coming from the ground and jutting up into the water unseen through the murky blackness. His back was absolutely _throbbing_ and the last thing he could truly afford to have happen was get an injury that would keep him from being able to get out and get help. He first threw the backpack up onto the side of the small outcropping, grasping the cool stone with both hands before dragging himself up on the rough stone, grimacing as that same beautiful quartz that enchanted him from the water now began to dig into the skin of his knees.

With a final grunt of effort, he pulled himself free of the water to sit and scoot back against the wall, head falling back while he panted and coughed violently. It was bad enough that he’d managed to get water into his lungs, the added grit from silt and stone made Hanzo wheeze harshly and cough even when there was nothing _left_ to cough up. Eyes fluttered as he looked around the cave and tried to pick out what each of the murals depicted while the cold seeping through the stone from the rapidly cooling desert just outside started to chill his skin.

The one directly across from him, he realized with a squint as he held the glow stick up, seemed to show some kind of upright man with a face like a fox and fire in front of him. Behind were huge giant like men and in front were ordinary figures not unlike the almost stickmen seen on other parts of the wall. A Prometheus story? Was the foxman stealing the fire? He didn’t know. The sudden fatigue that began to seep into his very bones made it nearly impossible to focus on anything more than how _comfortable_ this ledge was and how _tired_ he was. It was kind of cold, especially since he was wet, but that was _fine._

The mural closer to him seemed to depict a different story. The foxman was at it again, small figures beside him facing a far larger one with its leg pointedly bent in half. The rest of the glyphs seemed to show only straight legs for all people so that seemed weird. It was hard to focus on the story, something that seemed like a giant with a broken leg, when he was just so exhausted from being beat around like a ragdoll that he couldn’t even think straight.

The air didn’t really seem that cold and he’d stopped shivering. Was it strange that the air seemed to be getting warmer in here? It seemed like the air was warming up. Maybe his clothes were already starting to dry out. Whatever it was, it was pleasant. His eyes drooped as he felt comfortable, breathing settling into a shallow in and out as he felt sleep coming upon him…

 

In and out, slow and shallow...

 

Wait.

 

This wasn’t right.

 

Instinct and _terror_ hit him in the chest, almond eyes snapping open in sudden alarm as Hanzo realized that he was _still_ in that cold cave. Wearing in wet clothes, after being submerged in _cold_ rainwater for who _knows_ how long, he shouldn’t be _warming up._ This wasn’t a sudden reprieve from the chill, this was something far more insidious. The desert would be cooling down rapidly at this time of afternoon as the sun set, that chill would be seeping into these old caves despite the way the stone liked to avoid rapid changes in temperature. He wasn’t _comfortable._ This wasn’t _warmth._

This is what _death_ feels like.

Moving was difficult at best as Hanzo fought with his sluggish hands to get his clothing peeled off, dropping it into a pile and shakily trying to force the backpack to open. Genji had mentioned a change of clothes inside in passing. He needed warm clothes, he needed to keep moving, he had to keep _warm…_ but his fingers refused to work. Blue tinted thumb and first finger refused to grip the pull on the zipper, unable to open it up until out of desperation, Hanzo grabbed the zipper with his teeth and tugged the bag open.

Clothing and supplies fell out onto the ledge, a precious bottle of water slipping into the murky abyss to only barely be grabbed in time as Hanzo fell to his knees and clumsily snatched at it. He saw the blood on the cave floor before he _felt the pain_ because of how cold he had become. Redressing was slow and he was just so _tired…_

Stay awake, Hanzo. You’ve made it too far just to die now. Get up. Do your drills. Do jumping jacks. Do _anything._

With some luck, he might just survive the night.

 

\--

 

_1 hour. 1 hour, 3 minutes, 24 seconds… 25 seconds… 26--_

That’s how long his brother had been gone. He had just watched his closest relative and best friend get _sucked_ down into a fucking _hole_ in the ground, drawn away by the rain to unfathomable depths underneath the desert. There were hundreds of caves down there. The guide who had held him by the shoulders and called the state troopers while he lost his _mind_ had explained that beneath their feet was a labyrinth of tunnels and there was no way to know exactly where Hanzo will have ended up because there were several openings all over the desert along with a veritable maze that extended further under the surface.

Within a few minutes the closest state trooper had shown up to get Genji’s name and start calling the local phone tree. 5’8”... 180 pounds, give or take. Japanese-American, big ass tattoo down his left arm. Goatee. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and has the ugliest fucking yellow reflective backpack you have ever _seen._ The troopers that showed up said that the neon backpack that Hanzo had _hated_ with a burning passion might just save his life because it would be easy to see from the sky when they passed over with a helicopter.

“Genji.” The trooper called, snapping his fingers in front of the man to try and get his attention. The younger Shimada had been in a state of shock, providing as much information as he could to the team of people searching for his brother but other than that he wasn’t emotionally _there_ right now. All he could think of was the moment that Hanzo’s body was _sucked_ under the earth. He was having trouble focusing on anything other than that one detail as he stared out over this huge, expansive desert. What had once seemed beautiful now seemed like a pretty fucking huge haystack to lose a single, cranky needle.

His favorite cranky, stubborn, angry needle. The only one he had.

His eyes snapped up to follow the hand currently waving in front of his face, ugly gray blanket wrapped around his shoulders as the tan-outfitted trooper gave the young man a concerned expression. “What?” Genji snapped, shuddering at just how _cold_ it got out here at night. It had been a solid 85 degrees or more out here today and yet during the night the desert was falling into the 40’s.

He looked around the group of volunteer services that had started to show up as a helicopter could be heard in the distance, coming to their aid. The fact of the matter was, Hanzo was somewhere out in this cold, presumably wet, likely fighting for his life if he wasn’t already dead.

That thought rocked Genji to his very core. He’d only _barely_ managed to mend fences with his older brother. The idea of having finally managed to regain Hanzo, his best friend, after nearly 10 years of being estranged from each other and the last year of actual tension coloring every single thing they did only to lose him to a _freak accident_ out in the desert? That was bad all by itself. Combining it with the knowing that Hanzo would have _never_ even been out here if it weren’t for the fact that _Genji_ had forced him out here to go on this _stupid_ hike…

It was almost more than he could handle right now.

“I know that you’re having trouble focusing, this is seriously traumatic, I _get it_ kid.” The trooper-- Morrison his badge read-- said and smiled in that sad way that all onlookers did when there was sympathy but very little that could actually be done. Genji felt a little bubble of rage rising in his chest, right behind the sternum as he saw the same expression on their faces. They _got_ it? _They got it?_ How the fu--

“I’m sorry officer, he’s having a really hard day.” A voice called from behind him. Genji spun on his heel, recognizing the tour guide, Halháta, walking up away from a motorcycle behind him. The man didn’t even try to smile at Genji, just giving him a worried expression and pressed a bag of McDonald’s into his hands. “Eat this. We’re going to find your brother, ok?”

It didn’t change the rage in his chest that tightened so full that he felt like he very nearly might burst with it. It didn’t take away the _pain_ of knowing that if they didn’t work _fast_ , if Hanzo had survived his trip through the underground to wherever he’d gone that they might not find him alive _anyway._ It didn’t change any of the facts that the troopers had been murmuring to the survivors about how the first 24 hours were the most crucial and after that the chances of finding someone alive began to take incredible dives. It didn’t change any of those facts, but a face that was worried but not smiling and a hand that rubbed his back and provided food helped Genji focus on the task at hand.

He hadn’t even realized that there were tears until he felt the hot liquid start to slide down his cheeks. _“Thank you.”_

“You’re welcome.” Halháta smiled, guiding Genji with a hand around his shoulder back to the tent that was being set up which would become the impromptu communications center for the search.

“Alright, so we know we saw him last here.” Morrison spoke, his voice reminding Genji of the stones they used to put into their toy tumbler to smooth off. It rumbled and had a grit to it but wasn’t altogether unpleasant. “We’re going to have the volunteers start combing the desert here and here. I called a bunch of spelunkers from a nearby tour company, they should be here in about an hour or so. We’re going to get some people down there who are trained and competent so that we can try to find him. The goal is always to find people alive but even if that isn’t possible, we still need to find him and get him back to his family.”

Morrison’s aged sapphire eyes looked up, making eye contact with Genji’s own axinite pair before moving on to match to the guide and then the rest of the officers who would head up divisions of volunteers to comb the sands looking for Hanzo.  “We have to move quickly. Genji, considering how you’re taking this, I would suggest that you stay here while the rest of us look for him. You’re not really in any state to be looking for clues.”

As much as it pained him to admit it, the trooper wasn’t _wrong._ Genji could barely focus on anything beyond the tip of his own nose right now and there was a high chance that even if he did manage to find anything out there in that desert that he wouldn’t be able to recognize it for what it was.

“Genji, if you want to stay here at the main base and greet the volunteers as they come in, that might help you keep your mind busy.” Halháta offered and handed him a bottle of water. The guide had peeled off at some point or the other after the trooper had first arrived to take the tour group home before turning right back around to help with the search. Genji supposed that he probably felt guilty in some degree; Genji felt like the entire weight of his brother’s disappearance sat firmly on his own shoulders.

_‘I can’t help but think we’re wasting time…’_

Hanzo hadn’t wanted to even do this but Genji had forced him out here. He’d just wanted to go home to Japan, but Genji wanted to take him somewhere ‘fun’. _This was all his fault._

“Yeah..” He rasped, clearing the sorrow from his throat as if it were so easy to do the same for his mind, “Yeah. I can do that. Do you just want me to get them water?”

Morrison gave a nod, offering Genji another sort of reluctant smile. “Yes. Make sure they’ve got beacons and water before sending them to whatever officer is waiting. If we don’t have an officer waiting then have them stay with you. We don’t want to lose any more people out here in the desert tonight.”

“Hai.” Genji responded, fatigue and heartbreak rolled into a single word. “I will do my best.”

“That’s all we can ask from you, kid.” Morrison gave him a small smile. “I’mma find your brother and bring him back to you if I gotta go down in that hole myself. I promise you that.” The aged trooper settled a heavy hand on Genji’s shoulder. “Alright! Let’s get a move on, that kid’s not gonna find himself!”

‘Hanzo’s tough,’ Genji told himself though he didn’t believe it. ‘He survived a heart attack and years of putting up with me, he’s tough. He can survive anything. Aniki’s strong enough to make it through this.’ No matter how much he tried to convince himself, it didn’t seem to work. No amount of positive vibes were going to find Hanzo. It would be one of these good, hardworking people who had taken time out of their lives to come walk through a thorn-infested wasteland looking for one man among hundreds of miles of nothing.

His brother’s survival relied on these volunteers so Genji steeled himself to be the best host he could be. He tied that ugly, scratchy woolen blanket around his shoulders like a cape and began to hand out the water and beacons as people arrived, thanking them profusely for their help. These people would save Hanzo, he needed to have them motivated.

To his great surprise, Genji began to see faces from Phoenix as members of their company started to show up still in suits. Hanzo had always been beloved by all but when he’d tagged a panicked post onto Facebook telling everyone that his older brother had gone missing, the last thing Genji had expected would be this large of a turn out.

Hundreds of people were showing up both from the local tribe, the small towns in the area, and now from the major metropolis to the south to help find his older brother. This time when the hot tears slid over his dust-caked face, they were of a slightly different sort. Happiness. Relief.

_We’re going to find you, aniki. Just hold together._

 

\--

 

The soft green aura of the glow light had been getting dimmer and dimmer as Hanzo ran out of energy to try and keep himself warm, settling for standing against one of the stalagmites that rose from the ground, leaning up against it with the weight of his upper body, holding the stone tightly. Once the majority of his fear of dying from hypothermia had gone away, evidenced by his fingers feeling warm once again and the shivers returning thankfully, Han had found the next largest worry was exhaustion. He was going to run out of light if he didn’t hurry and find a way out of here.

He’d checked three different times to see if there was an actual flashlight in the bag that Genji had packed but while there was a tarp and other things of that nature, a flashlight didn’t seem to be on the agenda.  
  
_Chikushou--_

A sound, a growling noise came from inside the cave. Hanzo looked up, head snapping from side to side as he tried to figure out where the sound had come from with only the small glow light to go with. Was there a wild creature in here? His first thought was instantly that there might be a fucking _bear_ in here with him but his mind helpfully reminded him that bears didn’t live in this particular part of the world. He was far more likely to encounter a coyote.

 _There._ There it was again, the same deep snarling rumble deep in the cave. Hanzo glued his back to the nearest wall, brandishing his keys pathetically as if they could even _possibly_ help him if he was truly in here with some kind of _animal._

Hanzo feels his breathing start to pick up, bordering right on the edge of hyperventilating as he squints into the darkness, fearing the unknown more than he feared whatever beast might actually be there. The darkness was nearly impenetrable but as he squinted against it, his eyes felt like they were finally getting a handle on the cave. Maybe after hours in the dark they were finally becoming accustomed to the darkness or maybe, just maybe, his glow stick was getting brighter.

 _Was_ it getting brighter? Was that possible? Han looked down at the stick clutched in his white-knuckle grip and sucked in a breath. It _was_ getting brighter--

A louder growl rumbled through the cave, the sound morphing almost into the sound of a deep male chuckle that burned a stripe of white-hot panic up Hanzo’s spine. His head snapped up, eyes widening just in time to see teeth formed from the sparkling of quartz and sharp as the edge of a _wakizashi poised against skin--_

Pain. Pain blossomed as his head struck stone, the back of it busting against the back wall that he’d sandwiched himself between with that tall stalagmite still in front of him where he had been leaning on it. Hanzo gasped, sucking in breath as he stared around and panted harshly. The spectral beast was gone, the glowing was gone, the stick seemed to have lost it’s luminescence entirely instead of getting brighter. Hanzo clutched his chest, gritting his teeth harshly against the rush of panic at being lost in the dark _again._

It was a dream. A fucking _dream._ He’d fallen asleep in this _hellhole_ and his mind had taken it upon itself to imprint his worst nightmares into the surroundings. His entire life, as long as he could remember, Hanzo had been afraid of foxes. He had no good reason to be terrified of them; it wasn't like he could point to a trauma and say 'this is why.'His entire childhood he’d just drawn pictures of his nightmares, foxes. _Wolf-like_ foxes. It wasn’t until he’d come here to America that he’d learned his night-terrors had a _name._

_Coyote._

“I have _got_ to get out of here.” Hanzo whispered to himself, starting to turn slowly to return to the small crevasse he’d located earlier with the help of the glow stick. It was slow moving in the dark, hands slowly gripping at the walls and floor in a desperate mission to try not to fall back into the water… which seemed to have receded. When he reached out to grip the edge, the water that had been there was gone. Slowly lowering down onto his chest, Hanzo reached a bit further over the edge of the water and slowly began to pat down the clammy wall to find that the water level dropped further than he could feel. Well, shit.

He got back up onto his hands and knees, carefully moving closer to the wall and looked through the opening in the rock. His heart nearly skipped a beat as he saw _light_ and realized that there, no less than 20 feet from him, there was the bright light of the _sun._ That was his way out of here. The only obstacle? That 20 feet was some of the smallest cave he’d ever seen. It looked like it could house a person and Hanzo had a small stature by merit of being Japanese but his shoulders were still rather broad.

There was also the fact that he was extremely claustrophobic.

The problem was that if he didn’t get out of here it didn’t matter how claustrophobic he was, he’d die in here. Hanzo looked at the tunnel, swallowing roughly and briefly considered his chances of rescue if he didn’t leave. It was going to be a tight fit but… He had no choice but to try. There was no way anyone would ever find him in here.

The man breathed in harshly, taking off his backpack and pushed it into the tunnel. He couldn’t wear it while he shimmied out but it would block the light. Not only would he have to shove himself through what barely constituted as a passage, Hanzo would have to do it in complete darkness. Do not hyperventilate. Do not hyperventilate. _Do not hyperventilate._

Hanzo pushed the backpack further down the tunnel, inhaling slowly and then laying down on his back to begin pushing himself through the crack in the rocks. It took a moment but he ended up on one side, his old set of pants threaded over the arm facing down so that it wouldn’t be ripped up by dragging it against the rock.

Slowly... Slowly. Each inch was a win as he reminded himself to breathe. One small little shimmy at a time. Tension tightened in his gut as he began to feel the crevasse beginning to tighten around him. Each breath out hit stone and blew back in his face; stale air and the distinct possibility of running out of _oxygen_ . Hanzo closed his eyes and imagined a much larger cave, tried to force himself to think of anything else but the tiny stone _coffin_ he was laying in. Inch by inch by inch.

Alright, it wasn’t just his imagination, this cave was _absolutely_ getting smaller. It was getting smaller and hotter and _oh god I am going to die in here--_

He sucked in a shaky breath, fingers grasping at the stone as he felt his chest meeting solid bedrock. He was unable to even fully expand his lungs as there just wasn’t enough _room_ and the light didn’t seem to be enough. It just wasn’t _enough._ Hanzo’s mouth dried out and he pushed fruitlessly against the rock, unable to move his arms or bend them to reach down below the waist. Nails clawed at the stone, mind skipping a tracks while panic tore through all rationality.  
  
This was a _mistake._ He had made a _horrible mistake._

The man clenched his hand close to his face, squeezing his eyes shut and clamping his teeth around the meat of his thumb, gripping tight as sobs began to rock him as much as they could considering he couldn’t _breathe._ He tasted iron, smelling the blood before he felt it.

Soft whimpers escaped the once regal first-born son, pride all but stripped from him as he desperately tried to control his anxiety. He felt the way his heart was beginning to tighten, the now familiar feeling of twisting in the organ forcing a cold shock of pain through his body as he hissed in breath through his nose and buried his face in the fabric of his shirt so as not to suck in dirt into his already battered lungs. If he died in here, no one would ever know. He would never be found.

If a man screamed in the desert and there was no one around to _save him_ did he still make a _sound?_

This was a heart attack. He was having _another_ one and now he was _alone._ There were no EMTs to come save him. There was no secretary to walk through the door and come to his aid. There was nothing to stop it.

_No way out._

It was different this time. _This time_ he knew what it was. Fear. It was _fear_ and stress causing this and the answer was to escape the stimulant. Couldn’t go back, couldn’t fall any further. He’d hit rock bottom; the only way up was _out._

His eyes snapped open and he looked up, extending his arms to push the backpack further along. Both arms out, gripping onto the stone the best he could. Bend his knees as much as he could to get the rubber of his shoes wedged against the stone.  
  
_San, ni, ichi…_

Hanzo shoved all his power into the motion even as it caused a rough spasm of pain to rip through his chest, moving forward about a half of a foot in that one motion. Between his heart and what felt like gashes in his back rubbing up against the walls as he moved, Hanzo wasn’t even sure if he could keep up the strength to drag himself along but he _had_ to. _Again, do it again._

He kept resetting his arms and legs, moving and pulling until he saw the backpack fall out of sight because it had fallen out of the tunnel, tumbling down the soft slope of sand toward the flat basin below. He did his best to keep calm, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. In, out, repeat. It wasn’t to say that his anxiety was gone; it was as ever present as it had always been and when he’d pulled his head free and a pile of sand had threatened to smother him as it slid over the opening of the hole, Hanzo had nearly felt his heart burst _again._

With one final pull, Hanzo ripped his body free of the tunnel and slid down the side of the hill down to the same gully where his backpack had rolled, laughing deliriously in relief of finally being _free._ How long had he been in there? How long had he been lying there literally feeling his terror rearrange his internal organs?

He had no idea. What he _did_ know was that he couldn’t afford to stay out in this heat for long. Hanzo started to squint into the harsh sun, trying to figure out exactly where he was but he didn’t recognize _anything._ If there was one thing he was quickly realizing though, it was that the desert was entirely too hot for any real travel during the day. He’d have to move at night if he was going to keep from overheating or dying to hypothermia at night. There wasn’t even a pack of matches in his bag, not that Han would have dared use them light in the event that he _could_ get out. If he could make a torch out of wood and use that to travel at night, he would have to find another way to light it.

With a determined set in his jaw, Hanzo looked around and began to gather dry bits of dead plants that he thought he could turn into something workable while also looking for anything that would cast a large enough shadow for him to keep cool. His eyes landed on a giant cactus standing proud and walked toward it to start setting up the tarp that had been tucked at the bottom of his bag.

There were prettier shelters to be sure but this was the one that he had to work with. It would keep the sun off of him at the very least and that would just have to work. Hanzo took a very conservative sip of water and dug out the sand beneath the tarp to get down to the cooler that was deeper before laying down his old clothes to keep him protected from whatever might be _living_ in there. Finally, he laid down and closed his eyes with a soft breath out. Safe might not be the right term, but that was the one Hanzo chose to use. It was _safe_ to rest.

Perhaps survivors were all once _idiots_ just like him who had found the will to live.

This time when the darkness took him it was blissfully dreamless. No demons to haunt his dreams, no teeth coming for his soul. Rest is fitful. Even with his wet clothes from before and the tarp, it was hot down in that sand. Hotter than what a human is really prepared to handle for hours on end like this. He slept, he slowly drank water and when Hanzo woke, he realized it was late afternoon. He was _famished_ and his mouth felt like he’d been gargling with the sand that he had ground into every inch of his skin. Places he’d forgotten even _existed._

This was where the rubber met the road. Looking through his provisions, even as much of a ridiculous packer as Genji could be, he hadn’t given him food enough to last more than a day or two out here. Sure, there was more trail mix and water bottles included inside that obnoxious neon backpack than Hanzo would have needed for a single trek out into the desert but it wasn’t enough to last as long as he might possibly have to last out here.

The man prided himself on knowing random facts and one in particular came to his mind. Urine could be drunk in an emergency but he absolutely _refused_ . That’s where he drew the line. There was _no way_ he was ever going to be drinking anything he pissed out. Hanzo would sooner use it to dampen the shirt he was currently wrapping around his head to keep cool than to drink it… and he wasn’t planning on doing _that_ either.

After a lot of consideration, Hanzo settled on eating a protein bar and sitting down to let it digest while he sipped water slowly. He needed a _plan._ The desert wasn’t forgiving and being able to find his way would be significantly harder at night but he needed to avoid moving around in the heat or risk dying even _faster._ So he sipped water and shredded his old t-shirt to tie the bits and pieces of wood that he’d gathered into a workable torch. He didn’t exactly have any good options here, he realized that he _did_ have something that might work.  
  
Genji had packed lip balm. Not only had he packed lip balm; Genji had been _lazy_ and just grabbed the Vaseline tub Hanzo knew he kept on the bathroom counter. It’d been a habit Genji picked up back in highschool to give his lips and eyelids that ‘dewy’ look that apparently girls loved and it seemed like he _still did it._ This vain peacock was about to save his life.

Petroleum was _ridiculously_ flammable and no random gust of wind was going to put it out.

Hanzo took the Joshua log that he’d found and began to tie it onto the torch with now vaseline slicked cloth and then worked to form another row of larger sticks around and secure them to the torch. It was huge, almost like a mace, but it would put out a lot of light and if he had to _hit_ something with it… Well, that would certainly teach a predator to think twice. _‘Top of the food chain, here I come.’_

However there was a significant flaw in his logic; Hanzo didn’t quite have any way to light it. No flint or matches, he was wracking his mind with ways to come up with a fire before the sun set. He’d seen enough survival clips on Facebook to know that actually using friction to start the fire was almost impossible and his glasses had vanished in the current, knocked clean from his face.

A chorus of howls from the cliffs behind him had Hanzo desperately wracking his mind to come up with a way to get this torch lit. He needed _fire_ to ward off the animals. He was starting to actually try rubbing his excess twigs together, the sound of yips and barks coming from the cliffs beginning to get closer and pebbles started to roll down the face. Just for good measure, he pinched himself to ensure this wasn’t another _dream._

No, this was absolutely real. He was out in the middle of the desert without matches, about to be trapped in the cold with animals and no way to protect himself.

The sound of wings beating caused Hanzo to let out a harsh yelp of surprise, scrambling back from his pit. He had already pulled the tarp down and put it away but the clothes he’d been laying on were still in there. The black crow, the one he _swore_ was the same crow as before, was sitting on the ground there, content to cock its head and start plucking at Hanzo’s pants.

“Get away!” Hanzo rasped, getting up on his feet and throwing his arms out to try and scare the bird off. “Go! Shoo!” When did his voice get so rough? It had to be the water he’d nearly inhaled with all the sand in it; his throat sounded _awful._ “Shoo!”

That damned crow didn’t seem to be going anywhere quickly. The bird bobbed stubbornly, bouncing over his clothing and looking up at him. Hanzo could almost imagine the stubborn laughter as it plucked at his cargo pants. The howls were getting _closer_ and he didn’t have time for this.

The bird plucked at his cargo pocket, tugging at the clasp to get it open and cawed at him once more. Hanzo’s eyes _widened._ That pocket was where he had his keys-- His keys, his wallet, and his _garage door opener._

He took a dive for the pit, grabbing at the pant pocket and opened it up to pull out his bulky old-fashioned opener. The remote had seen better days and it was just about to get worse. He had no way to open the screw that kept it shut but he pinned the plastic box between a stone and hit it with another, crushing it open.

There inside laid a single 9-volt battery.

The crow cawed as if laughing, hopping along before taking flight into the night while Hanzo thrust the electrode bearing ends of the battery into the vaseline coated fabric.  
  
With a crackle, it _ignited._

He blew gently, starting to get the torch fully coated in the life-giving and life-stealing flame, turning on his heel to swipe the heat across the desert. The pack of coyotes stopped in their tracks, scurrying back from what would have been an easy prey.

 _That’s right,_ I’m _your Prometheus now._

Hanzo looked up in the sky as the bird flew slow circles over his head and then began to glide around the corner and off behind the stone. He grabbed up his bag and shoved his clothes inside haphazardly before plucking the torch up off the ground and setting off in a sprint. He _had_ to catch that bird.

_‘Okaa-san, if you’re watching, I’m going to make it out of here and come home to see everyone. Just give me a little more time.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you guys so much <3 If you haven't commented already, please do, if you have... do it again!
> 
> I live and breathe for comments. 
> 
> For this chapter I would suggest Florence and the Machine's Breath of Life
> 
> ~Ladie


	4. Kites Rise Highest Against the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Kites rise highest against the wind--not with it." -Winston Churchill_

_30 hours, 31 minutes, 34 seconds._

At some point during the process of combing the desert for his brother-- the cops had begun calling them _remains_ and it hurt like a knife to the gut every time he heard it-- Genji had started to fall asleep on his feet. He’d been awake for nearly 38 hours now and he was literally starting to come apart at the seams. The guide, for his part, had been an utter _saint._ In the last 12 hours Genji had done everything from scream at the man for _losing_ his _aniki_ down a _goddamn hole_ to sobbing pathetically in his arms. 

Who was he supposed to call? His step-mother was in Japan and she had never been Hanzo’s biggest fan anyway. Their real mother was _dead._ They had no real family here in the states. The overwhelming amount of _employees_ who had shown up to help search warmed his heart but eventually they had to give up. They had to _give in_ and _give up._ They had to sleep at some point and with Genji screaming deliriously into the faces of people who genuinely cared until he was blue in the face. Didn’t they _care?!_

“Get back here! Don’t just _give up!_ We have to find my brother-” Genji sobbed as another car drove away, voice nothing more than a harsh whisper into the howling wind. The police had started working in _shifts._

Halháta grabbed him by the shoulders, the tanned skin such a strong contrast to his own pale hue even with the sunburn that blistered while he _refused_ to leave without Hanzo. If he didn’t come home with his aniki, Genji just _wouldn’t come home--_

“Genji.” The guide spoke, giving him a firm pat to the cheek as his hands raised to grasp the shorter male by the jaw and look him in the eye. _“Genji,_ you’re _exhausted._ You have to get some rest. You can’t _stay_ out here.”

Genji needed a _drink--_

“I can’t leave! My brother is _out_ there somewhere! My _brother-_ My _Hanzo_ is out there somewhere I can’t just _leave!”_ Genji hissed in breath through his teeth, eyes wild as the panic that had been slowly building began to feel like an actual sword through his back right between the shoulder blades and arching right through the ribs and out the sternum, spearing his heart on the path through.

“Shh… Shh, I know.” Halháta whispered, voice a low murmur as he tried to soothe this frantic man and looked around the group. The tour guide had become a bit of an unwitting companion to this terrified man and was now trying to convince him to do the smart thing and get some rest. He raised both thumbs to gently stroke over those high cheekbones, shushing Genji once more.

  
  
“Shh… I understand, Genji. We’re going to find him but you can’t be of any help to your brother if you are completely exhausted.” Even now with just this small coaxing, Genji was starting to sway into it and his eyes were rolling up into his head. “When we find him, you’ll need to be strong then _too._ He’s going to be injured and traumatized. Hanzo will _need you._ If you’re exhausted, you won’t be able to take care of him.”

“But I need to--”

“You _need_ to rest.” Halháta spoke firmer this time, concerned brown eyes locking onto the panicked pair across from him as the setting sun filtered through the sequoia locks painting Genji’s features in a rosy hue. “You’re going to collapse. I’m not kidding. You will _collapse._ I’ve seen it happen. You need to _get to sleep--”_

“Mr. Shimada!”

Genji and Halháta both turned to look up as Morrison jogged over to them both. The older male huffed a bit as he came to a stop in front of the pair of them, not even panting from the jaunt up the hill from where Hanzo had vanished into the ground.

“Did you find my brother?” Genji asked, hopeful and pulling out of the guide’s grip to look around Morrison to try and catch even a _glimpse_ of his sibling and _pray_ that what he saw wasn’t a _corpse._ “Did you?!” He was becoming desperate for answers as he watched the trooper shake his head somberly.

  
“No kid, I’m sorry. We haven’t found him yet but we _did_ find something that you described as belonging to him.” The trooper held up a pair of sand-scuffed and mud encrusted silver glasses. Hanzo was such a stickler for his frames that his set were actually given twin dragons over the earpieces. That made it very easy for them to be identified. Dread settled into Genji’s stomach as he asked himself if he _really_ wanted to know where they’d found those glasses.

“Yes.. Those are his.” Genji whispered, feeling as though his throat were seizing around the words and choking him in terror. “Where… where did they find them?”

Morrison’s face twisted in a bit of a wince, shifting his weight between his feet as the caw of a crow sounded high above their heads. “They said they found them at the bottom of the cave system. They _just_ found them.”

According to the plans Genji had read and read and _read_ until he felt as though his eyes would fall right out of his _skull,_ the plan had been for the spelunkers to explore the higher levels that matched water level and then work their way down as far as they could while still being safe. It had been an entire _day_ of them searching and working their way down the cave system and they had only _just now_ found the glasses.

_How deep had those been in there?!_

“And… And there’s no sign of my brother?” Genji asked tightly, breath catching in his chest and the hand suddenly settling between his shoulder blades had narrowed down to his entire world because everything was _spinning._

“Well…” The state trooper chewed on his words, looking down at the ground before reaching into his pocket to grab an evidence bag. “This was twisted around them.”

A lock of hair, likely from Hanzo’s temple, still connected to the skin that had held it there. These glasses looked like it they had been forcibly ripped off his face and the impact had taken a chunk of hair with it.

The guide lurched forward to wrap his arms around Genji as his knees buckled out from under him and the world went _black--_

Morrison sighed heavily, shaking his head as he made eye contact with Halháta and pulled his cap off to wipe the sweat from his brow. As he placed the cap back on his head, the black crow came and settled onto the guide’s shoulder. “I’ll get one of the medics to let him crash in an ambulance.”

 

\--

 

The crow had _vanished._ It was here only a few minutes ago but they had taken a sharp turn around the edge of the large stone formation that he was standing beside and now the creature was _gone._

 _“Kuso!”_ Hanzo cursed, kicking a stone and watched it roll a few meters before he sat on the ground and took another swig of his water. Ever since he had woken up in that pit, the man had been battling a severe headache. Logistically speaking, he was almost 100% certain that he was starting to get dehydrated. The urge to urinate had been nearly non-existent when he woke up and despite how badly Han wanted to conserve water, he had to bite the bullet and _drink_ something. How would Genji feel if he found Hanzo dead of dehydration with bottles of water still on his person?

Oh right, _Genji._

He closed his eyes, indulging in that primal desire to chug the liquid that would keep him moving and functioning. He still had to get back to his baby brother. Genji _needed_ him to take care of the company and make sure that he didn’t go back to drinking. There was no one else who could do it for him, he didn’t even have a girlfriend much less someone close enough to keep an eye on whether he was falling into his old habits. Genji hadn’t been trained to run the company either. The thought of his _otouto_ on that same floor he himself had fallen to was too much.

_That would require you to actually care-_

The words came unbidden to his mind, causing the man to wince harshly and jam the heel of his hand into his temple and try to rub away the spiking pain. Hanzo hadn’t _meant_ that when he said it but he realized that was one of the last things he said to Genji. What if he _did_ die out here? Genji would have to live with that for the rest of his life.

 _No._ Hanzo looked down at the now empty water bottle and tucked it into his backpack so that he could fill it on the odd chance he came across a water source. No, he wasn’t going to let that happen. No matter what, he had to make it back to Genji. He had to _apologize_ for that. Hanzo pulled himself up off the rock and turned to look up the hill, hoisting his torch from where it had been crackling near his feet to raise it over his head.

A glance up at the stars twinkling above him and then up this miniature _mountain_ he was about to try and climb. If there was any chance of him finding his way out of this it would come at the top of this plateau. If he could get enough _altitude,_ he could possibly find his way out by following the lights of the city. Surely with land as flat as this he would see _something_ up there, right?

_Right?_

At least the headache seemed to be receding as the water began to absorb, though that one spot nearest to his temple was _throbbing_ in time to his fluttering heartbeat. Hanzo grunted as he hoisted himself up and gently ran his fingers over that portion of scalp. His hand jerked away on its own as a hiss of _pain_ escaped. _Great._ Hanzo had already been feeling the long gashes from rocks ripping up his back with his hands and now he had a head injury to match. It’d be easier to count the places that _didn’t_ hurt.

He shook his head, forcing himself to keep climbing despite the pain to start working his way to the top. The ‘hill’ was starting to feel more like a mountain. Despite the fact that the cliffs seemed to have gentle slopes to them, Hanzo was starting to realize that they were significantly harder to climb than he had first assumed. _Especially_ with the injuries and fatigue that was hitting somehow even _harder_ than before. Gritting his teeth, he dug into the hillside and climbed against the unforgiving face until his thighs burned from effort and his head throbbed. For the most part, the small group of coyotes had moved on and left him alone but there seemed to be one left that didn’t get the _hint._

Hanzo shot a glance down at his feet where he’d realized he was about a third of the way into the climb. It almost seemed to be waiting to see if he would fall and become an easy meal, by the way it watched without moving. It’s front paw seemed like it had been caught in a trap at one point. Clearly this animal hadn’t learned its _lesson_ from the last interaction it had had with humans if it was once again barking up this tree.

“Shoo!” Hanzo grit through the pain, taking another few steps up the face on his climb to the top. The stubborn beast only cocked its head to the side and yipped, having the _gall_ to sit as he struggled to the nearest landing. What was it with animals in this goddamn _wasteland_ and being completely _unafraid_ of humans?

 _‘They're not accustomed to people,’_ His mind helpfully supplied, _‘They don't know well enough to be afraid.’_

The other part of his mind, the logical portion, realized that they were likely near the Grand Canyon state park. It wasn’t that the coyote wasn’t used to humans, it was _too_ used to humans. Now it was entertained by them after being fed by one too many tourist. After all, it seemed a bit tubby around the middle.

Now wasn’t the time to be sitting here _musing_ on whether or not his fucking _audience_ was getting fat off of _snack food_ or _tourists._ He needed to make it up this hill. One foot in front of the other, hands remembering how to find grips from his past in climbing for entertainment value as a teenager. He slowly worked his way up the face and looked around, holding the torch high. In one direction, he thought he saw a valley which might just contain water though it was hard as hell to really see…

...and in the other direction he saw lights in every fathomable color shining into the abyss; light pollution to block out the galaxies of stars above his own head. _Las Vegas._ It had to be. Wasn’t there a _lake_ between him and Vegas though? More importantly, wasn’t there a _hundred_ miles or more of _desert_ in the way?

Hanzo jumped as he heard a whine beside him, looking down to realize the coyote from before had sat down beside him, watching the lights in the distance as well. Now that it was closer and under the light of the torch, he could better see the creature. It didn’t _look_ like what he expected a coyote to look like... How had it gotten up here?

As if to answer the question, the beast nodded off to the right and showed that the slope to the other side of this plateau was a more gentle incline and far more easily scaled. Hanzo had to tamp down the need to snarl at the beast because _of course_ a mere _mutt_ would have a better understanding of the topography than he had.

_Goddamnit._

Well, he had the entire night to travel and a clear destination to strive for along with the promise that the Colorado River was nearby _somewhere._ This was the closest thing to _hope_ that he’d allowed himself to have since falling down that hole 26 hours previous. Han had begun to scope out the cliff facing the glowing lights of Las Vegas down in the basin, trying to decide how he’d get down and on his way toward Sin City. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a native to the area and his grasp on American topography wasn’t great. What Hanzo knew was he still appeared to be standing on the Colorado Plateau, that he could see lights and somewhere in the middle both the descent from the plateau and Lake Mead sat. He just hoped that they weren’t one in the same.

How _would_ he get down if there was no easy path off the Rockies?

That was a question for another time. A howl echoed nearby, the high pitched yowling of a coyote and Hanzo spun around to glare at the canine still trailing along behind him. It simply cocked it’s head, the light of the crackling torch lighting up it’s left eye and glinting back at Hanzo but the howling continued on. It wasn’t coming from the ‘friendly’ coyote which could only mean one thing; it had to be coming from somewhere _else._

He raised his head, looking up at the cliffs behind him and realized that above him were _other_ predators. Not one or two like before. It seemed they had brought _friends._

Was the rule to run or hold your ground with these beasts? Did he even stand a chance if he tried? A dangerous squeezing in his chest reminded him of just how little stress his body was capable of enduring before it would _self destruct_ and Hanzo’s eyes slid to the coyote beside him.

Or where it _had been._ Hanzo spun around, realizing that the beast had already tucked tail and ran, the much faster creature already halfway down the gentle slope that it’d come from and showed no indication of coming back any time soon. Honestly, why was he surprised? It was a wild animal. No matter how much it looked like a dog or had even behaved like one for an instant or two, it was a feral _predator_ and it wouldn’t take care of him.

Hanzo raised his head, turning to look back at the horizon where he’d seen the lights to guide his descent, only to realize that they were _gone._ As quickly as he’d located them before, there was _nothing._ Han looked down at the ground, knowing his time was running out, ensuring that he was standing in the _exact_ same place as before to look out at the desert… but they were _gone._ No lights, not even the same barren landscape. Instead he saw the rising pillars of stone, backlit by moonlight and the shadow-elongated scruff of brush down below.

Had he just been imagining the light? He thought mirages were only when you thought you saw _water--_

There was no time to continue thinking about it. The pack had _jumped_.

The only thing that was going to take care of him out here was his own wit and need to _survive._ He didn’t even recognize the moment that he had sent the command to his legs to _run_ but he was chasing after it in an instant, the slope of the hill speeding him to the point Hanzo was worried about falling flat on his face.

He couldn’t afford to trip. There was no option to redo; no second life if he fucked this up. Hanzo grit his teeth at the stress put on old injuries in his knees but leaned forward and continued to sprint down the hill, gripping the heavy torch to keep the flaming mace from smacking him across the face with each heavy footfall. No time to stop, the heavy backpack rubbing his shoulders wrong, the weight of the torch threatening to pull his rotator cuff muscles and dislocate his shoulder with every heavy swing each time his muscles could no longer stand the weight.

A growl that was so close Hanzo could _swear_ he felt the heat of its breath on his heels, hearing the snapping and gnashing of teeth. Coyotes were so much faster than humans, there was no way he could maintain this speed once he hit the flat ground which was approaching faster than he was prepared for. His mind spun a mile a minute, desperate for any way to _survive._

 _I need an out. Give me an opportunity. If you’re real, if you’re listening:_ help _me._

God was not feeling generous today. Hanzo’s foot landed in a small hole in the ground, launching him off his feet and if he weren’t _eating sand_ right now, he would have thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t broken his ankle. He reached out and crawled forward on his hands and knees, going for the torch that had rolled several feet away and groaned as four paws landed directly on his back, the hot breath of a beast right behind his head.

_This is how it ends._

A matching snarl and a flash of russet fur that launched from behind a nearby outcropping in the stone and impacted the beast standing on him. Hanzo scrambled up to his feet, taking the opportunity to grab the torch and spin, _beating_ the coyote off what he now recognized to be a _coydog_ and send the pack back. 

 

“Go. _Go!_ Run!” Hanzo snarled at the downed coydog, waving the torch again in a wide arc as it made satisfying _contact_ with the coyote closest to him. “What are you _doing?”_ That damned mutt wasn’t going _anywhere_ . He grit his teeth and backed up toward the lights. The unholy mix of domesticated animal and wild _beast_ didn’t seem to get the fucking memo as it snarled at the pack while he swung. Later, Hanzo may yet admit that the stubborn loyalty the creature displayed may have even saved his life.

The snarling and the roar of flames had pushed the pack back far enough that Hanzo could start to hesitantly back up and disengage toward the city in the distance. He had to sidestep, looking forward to keep the glow on the horizon in his sights and then back at the darkness where only eyeshines could identify the beasts following him so closely. It seemed that shaking off coyotes was more difficult than he’d thought previously. _Like a dog with a bone._ A few steps to the side and then look back. Over and over again. 

  
He could only pray that his torch was enough to last the night because there was _no_ time to pick up more firewood and make another.

The coydog vanished at some point, yipping as it scurried off and left him alone to deal with the pack of coyotes that now traveled closer to their prey. The coydog might not have been the best or most trustworthy of company but an enemy of his enemies was close enough to a friend for Hanzo’s taste and he would have _really_ preferred it _hadn't_ decided to just _leave him._

The saving grace of the late summer in Arizona was that the sun still rose early. As it peeked over the edge of the horizon, the coyote pack began to give him a larger and larger berth. It wasn't much, but it was certainly better than before…

There would be no stopping now; no sleeping as long as those predators continued to follow his trail. Hanzo hadn't wanted to travel during the day but he would have to. The only stop he had time to make was one to get the last of the kindling off his long Joshua stick, apply some of the sunscreen from a half-empty bottle it seemed Genji had just tossed inside and relieve himself.

Without a compass, Hanzo could only hope he was headed in the right direction because he could no longer see the lights.

 

\--

 

 _“...H-Hey... “_  
  
Waking up in the ambulance had been one of the most jarring things Genji had ever experienced. Lights off and the stifling heat of the desert sun filtering in through the windows woke him with a sweat as he nearly rolled right off the cart and onto the floor, looking around in shock. He didn’t even remember falling asleep, much less how he’d managed to end up here of all places.

He found his way out of the ambulance, squinting and shielding his eyes to the harsh desert sun and waiting for everything to equalize. What had only been several police cars and nearly a hundred civilian volunteers had dwindled down to only the Ambulance, a single trooper talking to a k9 unit that was packing their baying hounds back into the van and that motorbike.

“What’s going on?” Genji had asked, not quite understanding. Not putting together the pieces of what was happening. Not at first. Where had the volunteers gone?

The tour guide who had dutifully stuck it out was still there, pained as he turned his face up into the sun. The man was standing up against his bike, arms crossed over his chest as he regarded the younger Shimada. More accurately, the _only_ Shimada. “They’re calling off the search. It’s been 48 hours and the dogs didn’t get a hit.” He said as gently as that news could ever be delivered.

Genji had felt glued to his place, eyes wide and disbelieving. His aniki was… _gone?_ That wasn’t possible. That _wasn’t possible._ Hanzo had always been a survivor. There was no way that in the span of two days his brother could just be _dead._ They were just _giving up._

The man shook his head harshly, backing up a few disbelieving steps from the guide and looked up when Morrison came from under the nearby tent with his hands up as if trying to calm a spooked animal. “We’ve called in the Feds but there is nothing more that we can do. The dive teams didn’t find anything else down there and if he did exit, we haven’t found _where.”_

Pulling his eyes from the high cheekbones and consoling eyes was hard, it was as if he’d been glued in place by the dark orbs holding his own but Genji did, eyes snapping onto Morrison’s. He felt _lost._ “What do you mean?” It came out as a croak, barely a whisper slipping through his throat that threatened to collapse in on itself. “What do you _mean?”_

“What I _mean,_ kid, is that we’ve exhausted our resources and we haven’t found anything. We might not ever _find_ anything and the experts say if you don’t find someone out in this heat within the first two days, you might as well just give up. They’re _dead.”_ Morrison barked, gruff and abrasive to a fault even as Genji stumbled back till his back hit the searing hot doors of the ambulance.

Dead.

_Dead._

Processing that word was the single hardest thing Genji had ever had to do. Dead. His aniki was _dead._ The phone slid out of his pocket as Genji fell heavily to sit down on the back bumper of the ambulance and his fingers moved without him consciously making the choice. A habit that had formed in the last year, a knee-jerk reaction that Genji was following through before he’d ever realized what he was _doing._

Listen to the rings, it only takes 5. There were only 5 rings standing between him and the confessional booth this line had become. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ri-

_‘You have reached the mailbox of Shimada Sojiro. I am not available at the moment to take your call but if you leave a message I will return the call as quickly as possible. Arigatou Gozaimasu.’_

“...H-Hey…” Genji rasped, jamming the heel of his hand into his eye roughly and rubbing as if that would stop the tears.  “Hey Otousan, it’s me. Again. I um… I’m really sorry I keep calling, I mean.. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway… I… ”

He sucked in a breath through his mouth, gulping in air while pulling his legs up to rest on the hitch of the bus. “It’s… I…” Genji blinked and swallowed roughly as he looked up into the wide blue unforgiving Arizona sky. “You know how I told you Hanzo was gone? I.. They’re giving up… and...” He bit his lower lip, drawing blood in effort not to _sob._ “They’re _giving up_ on aniki and I-”

“Otousan, I just, I don’t know what to _do.”_ He admitted, admitting for the first time that he was totally lost to an ear deafened by death on a tape that would never be played. “I just.. I don’t know what to do. I can’t. I _can’t--”_ His lips twisted into a grimace of pain, hot tears dripping to the dusty earth. “I can’t _make it_ without Han. I can’t _do this._ I’m not.. I’m not _strong enough_ … Dad please… I just need _help._ I need any help you can give, _please.”_ A world without his older brother just wasn’t someplace Genji wanted to be. _“Please don’t make me do this alone…”_

His phone chirped at him and he pulled it away to wipe the tears off on his shirt. 5% charge remaining. The phone chirped once more as the voice mail box canceled the call. Genji called the number right back, sucking in a shuddering breath.

Ring… ring… ring… ring... ring… ri-

 _“Dad-”_ Genji started, waiting to hear the familiar strong tone of his father’s voice. _‘The voice mailbox of the person you are trying to reach is full and cannot receive any more messages at this time. Please try again later.’_

No. _No no no no-_

He pulled the phone down, frantically beginning to redial the number with his shaking fingers, nearly dropping the device as he pressed the green button and brought it up to his ear, chewing on his thumbnail, praying for the _words._ He needed the sound of his voice to make it through this. Genji needed someone _here._

_‘Please try again-’_

He ripped his ear away as the tone played while his phone force shut down, throwing it across the sand and curled up tighter. What was he supposed to _do?_ How was he supposed to do this alone? Genji didn’t even know how to function without Hanzo. His entire life, Genji had sat in the shadow of the oldest son. He’d felt the pressure to be like Hanzo-- get good grades, stand up straight, do what Hanzo does and you will _succeed_ \-- and his whole life he’d felt smothered by the weight of that shadow.

It was only now that the shadow was stripped back that Genji realized how _naked_ he felt without it. Hanzo hadn’t been smothering him; it wasn’t a pillow shoved in his face trying to kill him in his sleep, it was the warm weight of a blanket protecting him from the cold. The protection of being placed beneath the elder’s wing. Hanzo was so strong and Genji couldn’t _be_ that strong; He didn’t know _how._

“Please. _Please.”_ He whispered, sobs finally taking him over and swallowing him beneath the surface like a riptide dragging a helpless swimmer out to sea. Mother was dead, Father was dead and now _Hanzo_ was gone.

_Please, somebody help me._

A hand fell to his shoulder, a friendly face coming into view as Halháta smiled and knelt beside the sobbing Japanese man so that he could be looking up at him rather than towering over. “Hey.” He whispered, rubbing both of Genji’s shoulders.

His head came up, wide almond eyes raising over the cheeks sprinkled with white freckles like stars. Up to a concerned set of sequoia orbs, the windows to a kind soul. Genji squeezed his eyes shut, pulling back to hit the door of the ambulance with a solid thump, rubbing his face roughly with both hands. A sob escaped despite his desperate attempts to keep it together. The guide couldn’t see him like this. _No one_ was ever supposed to see a proud son of _Shimada_ like this.

 _“Hey.”_ The guide tried again, gently pulling on his hands so that they were no longer digging into the sockets. Genji blinked, the tear-matted lashes clumped up and knew that with his bright red nose he had to make quite the ridiculous picture.

“I… I’m _fine.”_ Genji mumbled and took the handkerchief that Halháta offered him, rubbing his already sunburnt cheeks till they burned with salty tears. For the last two days this man had been there for Genji. Halháta had become his _rock_ when the brother who had always been his rock _before_ was gone. He truly didn’t deserve the devotion shown to him. At what point did it stop being guilt and start being something else? When the police said that it was probably a lost cause, guilt wouldn’t have held out for this long. Right?

“You don’t look fine.” Halháta said gently, continuing to pull the wrists until Genji’s hands were far from his face and smiled at him. A pathetic noise escaped, something between a scoff and another sob as Genji looked away and tried to hide in his own shoulder. “Hey, it’s _alright_ to not be fine. You don’t _have_ to be ok all the time.”

“You’re not Japanese.” Genji bit back bitterly, closing his eyes and pulling his wrists free of the admittedly gentle hold. “I am the heir now that Hanzo is gone. I am all that is left.”

 _“Issun saki wa yami.”_ Halháta spoke gently, reaching out to tap beneath Genji’s jaw with his own crooked first finger. Genji’s head snapped back around to look him in the eye, disbelief plain on his face as he heard his native language on the lips of someone who, by all accounts, had no reason to know it.

“It is dark before you.” Genji parroted in English, eyes shifting back and forth between each of the guide’s as he struggled to understand. ‘You never know what the future holds,’ was the commonly accepted translation for that proverb. But _how?_ How did he _know?_

“No. I am not Japanese… but my father was a _doctor._ So was my mother. My brother was a SEAL. I understand that pressure to perform. I also understand what it feels like to watch everyone die.” Halháta watched the other closely before standing up and offering Genji a hand. “It’s not over. It’s _never_ over until they find a body, Genji. I met your brother. Though it was brief, I _met_ him. He’s _strong.”_

Genji reluctantly took the hand offered to him, accepting the lift that Halháta gave that pulled him back onto his neon green sneakers. This guy got it? Yeah, he said ‘was’ as if his family was already dead and gone, he likely _did_ understand where Genji was. “I know he’s strong,” He hazarded with a rough whisper, rubbing his wet eyes against the back of his hand, “I _know_ he’s strong. But it’s the _desert…_ This place kills people stronger than either of us.”

“The desert might surprise you,” The Native smiled, taking a phone from his back pocket and spun it between his first finger and thumb before offering it to Genji. “Strange things happen in the desert every day.”

He sat there staring at the phone offered to him for an embarrassingly long time, waffling around with the idea of actually taking it. What would the phone accomplish if he had no one to call? It wasn’t as if he could just call up someone in the company or his many ‘friends’ that had miraculously vanished after his free time and drinking money had dried up.

No, he knew exactly who he’d call. Genji smiled apologetically as he began to walk further back to have some privacy with the phone. Lucky for him, the guide who had been _nothing_ but gracious up to this point understood what he needed. Halháta backed up and picked up Genji’s now shattered phone from the ground and took it over to his bike to plug it into his own phone charger.

Genji managed to reluctantly rip his eyes away from the retreating form, opening the phone to dial. This was also a number he had memorized. Not because he’d called it, no he should have been calling it a _hell_ of a lot more often. No, Genji had this number memorized because of how many times he’d stared at it and wished he had the courage to speak to the voice he knew he’d hear on the other side. He supposed it was no different than going to a shrine to speak to a lost loved one; this was a tombstone he could carry around.

He pulled it shakily to his ear and began to listen to the rings. Ichi, ni, san, shi, go-

_‘You have reached the voicemail of Shimada Hanzo. Sumimasen, I am unfortunately not able to answer your call right now. Please leave me a message and I will return it post haste.’_

“Hey, aniki.”

As Genji began his message, Halháta backed up a few feet and started to gather up the remaining items scattered around the camp. Morrison had finished pulling down the large tent that had served as the Watchpoint’s main planning table and was trying to shove it into the back of the State Trooper patrol car. The whole situation just looked hopeless and the guide almost felt _bad_ for essentially dangling a bit of carrot in front of him.

“Do you really think that pep-talk was a good idea?” The officer, Jack, asked while raising an eyebrow. In his experience, giving out hope to a family in this situation did no one any good. Despite his insistence that he would find Hanzo earlier, Morrison was quickly giving up hope himself.

“No… but it’s better than letting him fall apart out here.” Halháta mused, frowning as he finished packing things away and moved to instead lean on his Triumph once more. The fact of the matter was that if Genji fell apart here, the search would also fall apart. Determined family members were the driving force behind finding people, even if they were only bodies.

Morrison sighed, “I gotta get this joker to the nearest hospital. He looks like he’s about to fall over and you’ve already lost one too many men out here this week.” A pointedly accusing look at the guide who bristled at that accusation.

“Let me go get him.” Once again standing up from off the bike, Long Feather grit his teeth and forced down the bile that came from knowing he had to pull this man away from the front. They were taking all the civilians off the search and the experienced wilderness guide knew that could only mean that the authorities didn’t expect to find the man alive and wanted to minimize the chance of a layman finding a corpse.

“--and I love you, aniki. I’ll… I’ll see you later, ok?”

Genji was crying again and it was like a shot to the heart. From the very beginning of this tragedy, Halháta had found himself relating to the man losing his brother because of the loss of his own older sibling. It was hard to be the one to take that hope of finding him away. Long Feather was loathe to do it but _someone had to_ and he desperately wanted to prevent the heartbreak that was bound to come if _Morrison_ delivered the message.

“Genji?” Halháta said softly, once more placing his hand between the shoulderblades of the shorter man. “Hey, we really need to get you out of here. You can’t stay in this sun like this or it’ll be _you_ in the hospital.”

“I can’t-” Genji turned, blinking up at the sky again as if he thought that would make the tears less obvious on his face. “I can’t just _leave.”_

The guide winced, apologetic for even asking this poor man to do it but… he needed to get away from here. “I know you don’t want to, Genji… but you _have_ to go. You _have to._ You’re no good to Hanzo if you’re dead of exposure yourself.” He carefully skirted around the word ‘too’.

“I…” Genji stopped himself, looking down at the sunburns on his arms and then up to the concerned way both the trooper and the guide stared at him. If _anyone_ would know when he needed to call it a day was, it would be these two.

_49 hours, 11 minutes._

It had only taken him 49 hours to give up on Hanzo.

Genji shook his head and sniffed as his throat closed up once more, rubbing his face again. “I, uh, I can’t just leave. Not without… without doing something first.”

Long Feather gave a slow nod, watching the strange asian man as he began digging around in the trooper’s back seat and filling his own backpack with foodstuffs and water. Then he wandered to the saddlebags, promising vehemently that he would pay them both back and continued gathering matches and other survival necessities. 

  
“When I was a kid, my father used to harp on all day long about Japanese pride. ‘You are proud sons of Shimada,’” Genji emulated, frowning and pitching his voice deeper in a clearly _awful_ impersonation made only worse by how wrecked his voice was from crying, “‘You must be strong.’”  
  
The guide gave a slow nod, not _quite_ understanding where Genji was going with this as the man checked his watch for the time and then looked up to see the sun position.

“So you know how whenever you get lost as a kid, you have a plan?” Genji asked, nodding to the guide who shrugged before nodding back. 

  
“I guess. When I was a kid if I got lost I was supposed to go to the front of the store or make a big fire and stay put.”

“Yeah, like that!” Genji seemed to be pulling himself from the rut he’d been trapped in and for that Halháta was grateful. That meant that he might just be willing to leave. “Well, we never went camping or anything but when I was a kid we went with my father to conventions and stuff like that. The way it was between Hanzo and I was that if I ever got lost, I was supposed to go to the East wall. He was making fun of Otousan with his ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ bullshit.”

It was then that Halháta realized exactly what Genji was doing. The man had plotted where the rising sun would come up in the place where the tour group had eaten lunch and dropped his now full backpack there. “So you’re leaving him a cache.”

It was too bad the poor bastard probably wasn’t alive to find it.

 _“Hai._ If my brother finds his way back here, he will need supplies.” Genji spoke with a nod, finishing a note in a language the guide couldn’t read and tucked it inside the front pocket with the phone he had snatched from the bike while he was over there. 40% charge wasn’t much but the device was off, so it should hold. _Hopefully._ “I would rather be here myself but… If I cannot, this will have to suffice in the meantime.”

“It’s a good idea.” Long Feather mused, taking the helmet off his bike and offered it to Genji once he was finished. “I’m going back to Las Vegas. It’s me, Morrison or the bus if you want a lift.”

Genji grinned, finally able to forget his tears for a moment as he accepted the helmet. “I would rather go with you.”

“Alright,” Morrison grouched as he headed back toward his cruiser and pulled open the door to the front seat. “Both of you quit screwing around and get ready to move. I want both of you in my sights; I’m not leaving anyone else in this desert.”

“Sir yes sir.” Halháta drawled, faking a mock salute as Genji climbed onto the bike behind him.


	5. When he laughs, the desert laughs with him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strangeness of this place only gets worse, is it the dehydration or is there something else afoot here?

* * *

“You’re not getting any.” Hanzo rasped, his tongue feeling like sandpaper as he sat in the shadow of the large rocky hill he’d been following. Moving inside the shadow made it feel as if it was just a _fraction_ less like Hell out here and that fraction made all the difference in the world. He had tied a piece of his spare shirt over his head to try and keep the sun off his face and conserve sweat and used the rest as a wrap to keep the sun off his arms to varying degrees of success.

The coydog sitting across from him in the shade cocked its head to the side as if questioning why. Hanzo looked down at his small meal, The last water bottle he had left and his second to last protein bar. There was absolutely _no way_ he was sharing with this mangy mutt. This was survival and his survival _depended_ on this food. The fact that it had the _gall_ to _beg_ for food was obscene.

...and yet there it was, begging for a portion of his meal.

Hanzo supposed, if he was being honest with himself, that the coydog had earned some. He wouldn’t even be standing here to eat had the beast truly left him to the pack of animals on their trail. A soft whine from the creature as it began to crawl across the dusty ground like a domesticated dog was the final nail in Hanzo’s proverbial coffin.  
  
“Ugh, _fine.”_ Han groaned, rolling his eyes as he broke off a piece of the protein bar and tossed it to the begging dog before he could stop himself. The infernal creature ate it up like it wasn’t the most _disgusting_ piece of sawdust on the _planet_ and he hated himself for how _pleased_ it made him to see the canine seem to grin.

There was no point crying over food he could never get back. Hanzo heard the sounds of yipping in the distance and even while he felt _dead_ on his feet and his heart was still fluttering in his chest even after taking the time to rest, there was no time to sit here any longer. He had to keep moving.

With one final swig to finish the bottle, Hanzo placed it into his backpack and began to walk along the shadow again. There soon would be no shadow to walk in as he was coming to where the hill began to dip back into the Earth. The idea of traveling along in the sun wasn’t pleasant… But if you wanted to make an omelet, you had to break some eggs.

What was the average speed that a human walked at? Hanzo let himself ponder that question as he stared at the ground and focused on just putting one foot in front of the other. What was that bullshit fortune cookie nonsense that he heard all the time? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step? Well _clearly_ they had never had to make a journey of a thousand _fucking_ miles in a _goddamn_ desert.

This was hangry. There was no better answer for what he felt right now, Hanzo was hungry and it made him cranky at everything. That fucking crow was circling here and there and this coydog was now managing to appeal to his better nature and beg food off him. Speaking of which, _what was he thinking!?_ Hanzo shook his head and groaned at his own stupidity for feeding this animal any of what he had left.

“What use are you, huh?” Han asked, turning to look at the coydog and then spun on his heel to realize that _once again_ it was _gone._ “What the _fuck!?”_

Normally-- a ‘normal’ that felt an entire life away out here where the new normal involved a splitting headache and sunburn that no amount of negative karma could have bought him-- Hanzo didn’t curse this much. He tended to only fall into the weak habit of cursing to high heaven when he was at the end of his rope for the day. Out of spoons, as it were.

He’d given his last spoon to that _goddamn dog._

Fuck this. _Fuck_ that coydog. _Fuck everything._

Hanzo kicked the nearest stone in front of him, startling as he felt something firm behind him. Something that almost felt like a _chest._ He spun around, nearly falling as he stumbled backward. There was _nothing there._ What, was he having hallucinations now?

There it was again. A chest. A hand on his shoulder, another on his side. A rumble of laughter in his ear _just like in the cave._ Hanzo pinched himself as he turned once more to look behind him; a pinch that left a bruise and ripped some of his blistering skin ensured the man that he _was awake_ . That _couldn’t_ have been real. It wasn’t _possible._  
  
Hallucination? _Had to be._

He began to walk along with a little more pep in his step than before, nearly jogging to get away from whatever was causing his body to try fooling him like this, fighting off a dizzy spell along the way.  
  
_“You know, darlin’...”_

There it was again, the chest and the chuckle and the _voice--_

Hanzo spun and didn’t see a _damn thing._ Auditory hallucinations; It _had_ to be an auditory hallucination. There was no other answer for it… but why did it _feel_ real too?  
  
_“Town’s_ that _way…”_ It teased, a masculine voice armed with a thick southern drawl that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in alarm and gooseflesh spread over every inch of skin that wasn’t sunburnt past recognition. A voice so real that Hanzo could nearly _smell_ the tobacco in each _exhale._

He fell onto his ass when the phantom hand moved in from his shoulder and toyed at the strap of the backpack. It was all _too real_ when the strap _snapped_ and the backpack nearly _fell off._ Everything spun dangerously around him and his mind clung to the only explanation that _made sense._

“Not a hallucination. _Not_ a hallucination. _Not a hallucination.”_ Hanzo gasped out like a mantra, actually scrambling to his feet and breaking out into a _run_ as he desperately tried to outrun this _kami_ chasing him. There was no other answer for what he had felt and heard. This was a god; _it had to be._ A god or possibly a _yokai._

Could you outrun a demon?

 _“Only one way to find out.”_ Hanzo squeezed his eyes together and shook his head roughly as he realized the voice was _still there_ despite the feeling of hands leaving. Not only was it _still there,_ now it was giving a fucking _commentary._

_“Watch your step, Hanzo.”_

His eyes flew open just in time to avoid catching his foot in a hole and breaking his ankle, realizing just a second too late that this _kami_ knew his _name._ What little Hanzo remembered from the stories of his youth were that when a god knew your name, it was _not_ a good thing. Not that having a malevolent spirit know your name was _ever_ particularly good for your continued survival.

 _Great. Could anything_ else _go wrong?_

 _“Pumpkin, I’m pretty sure I could think of_ somethin’.”

Alright, to be fair, he’d just _walked_ right into that one. A _kami_ with a sense of humor, who knew?

“Could you just _shut up?”_ Hanzo hissed between panted breaths as what little energy he had for running dissipated faster than the sweat from his forehead in the harsh desert sun. “If I have to choose between _you_ or the _dog,_ I pick the fucking _dog.”_

Never in his life did he expect the god to chuckle once again in his ear and feel the scruff of a _beard_ on his cheek in a _nod._ Another spin and yet _another_ wave of dizziness revealed that he still couldn’t _see_ the thing but Hanzo was _way past_ denying its existence.

_“Have it your way.”_

Hanzo’s shoulders lifted as the invisible weight that was that _pressure_ on his back eased and he was finally able to breathe again. Sure enough, the coydog came around the hill and trotted right for him. What other answer could there _possibly be_ for that? There was absolutely no way-- regardless of how gifted his teachers had been convinced he was in school-- that he could have just _imagined_ that. No way.

He just sighed, sitting and slid the remaining strap for his pack off and began to try mending it with a ripped strip of t-shirt. He wasn’t going to get very far if his backpack was giving him more back pain.

 _‘Speaking of back pain,’_ Hanzo mused as he twisted the best he could and raised his shirt to look behind at his gashes from the waterslide of death. Sure enough long stripes of red originating from the wounds had begun to creep up his pale skin. It was hard to tell if he was imagining the heat coming from them, but it felt like the area was fevered. Now, Han was no medic but he wasn’t stupid. If the _exposure_ didn’t kill him, the _blood poisoning_ surely would.

The coydog panted as it came closer, stopping fifteen or so feet from him with a wet _schlop!_

 _‘Ugh. That beast better keep back.’_ Hanzo thought to himself as he tied the strap in place, tugging on it a few times to ensure that he wouldn’t lose the bag again. _‘I don’t want to be covered in mud and-’_

All of a sudden his moisture deprived mind spun back into focus, head raising so quickly that he very nearly _passed out_ from the dangerous way his world tilted on its axis. _Wet._ The coydog was _soaked._ That protein bar must have made it _thirsty._

“Oh my _god._ Who’s a good boy? _Who’s a good boy?_ Yes, _you are.”_ Hanzo rasped and crawled his way up to his feet while pulling the backpack up and over his shoulders once more while trying to ignore the throbbing pain that coursed up his shoulders and into his cranium with each shift of the weight over his injuries. “Take me to the water... Go on. Take me to wherever you went.”

The damned mutt didn’t so much as _twitch,_ panting as it extended its _glossy_ pink tongue and taunted a dehydrated man who was nearly _fainting_ from lack of _water._

Was blood potable? Han was ready to _find out._

“Go _on.”_ The saccharine sweet tone was becoming _significantly_ harder to muster. He _needed_ the water that this animal had just gone and _bathed_ in. _“Please_ don’t make me touch you. _Please_ don’t make me _wring out your fur.”_

Things Hanzo would have never even _considered_ 48 hours ago were suddenly _brilliant_ ideas. He had just barely started to move toward the coydog when the sound of howling could be heard far closer than he was comfortable with. With the lack of echo, he would wager that the predators were just on the other side of this ridge and he could _swear_ he heard the sound of that voice laughing in the distance, _mocking_ him because his time was _up._

The pack had closed the distance. Hanzo shoved the heel of his hand against his temple as a spike in his headache came along with a deadly swirl of blue sky and red stone. One step in front of the other, that’s all it took. Put one foot in front of the other and _keep moving._ Follow the water droplets on the ground before they _dried up_.

His hand came back with blood, the scab on his temple breaking open with the rough treatment and beginning to ooze dark blood slowly down his cheek. A stripe of panic struck up his back as he looked back toward the coyotes on the ridge behind them, pressing his t-shirt head wrap into the bleeding skin. Hanzo couldn’t afford to chum the water for those predators and he just _prayed_ that they couldn’t _smell_ the blood.

_“Yer downwind, iffn’ that helps.”_

_Fuck!_ Hanzo grimaced and didn’t bother turning to look for the aberration this time. The pressure hadn’t returned but it seemed the chatterbox deity, or _whatever_ it was, couldn’t keep his _end of the bargain._ Though, being downwind _did_ help. That meant that the predators wouldn’t catch the scent of blood as fast. Not that Hanzo would _ever_ admit that out loud.

Who was he kidding? This _kami_ could read his mind. He didn’t get a _choice_ but to interact with it. He looked up at the sun, swallowing around his dry throat as he realized it was on the edge of the horizon. The day spent walking through the heat without rest with barely any sustenance and Hanzo was only barely realizing that he could had no _appetite._ He should be _hungry_ but he _wasn’t._

The sun was setting and from what he’d learned of coyotes so far, that meant they’d become a _lot_ more aggressive soon. He needed to find someplace defensible and _soon._ The hills and gullies hadn’t provided him much cover and there didn’t appear to be any caves that he could see. Not that his blurry vision was really helping on that front. He looked back at the ground, trying to find more of the splatters but alas the dry ground and the heat had ruined any chances of following the water. Hell, even the mutt seemed to be drying at record speed.

Han did the only thing he could think of, he began to head up the nearest hill. He had no weapon, save a decent chunk of Joshua log, and he had no _plan_ but he had a mildly better chance of surviving on high ground.

He dropped his bag and began to pull the natural stones to form a barrier. It wasn’t the best wall but it would have to do for now. Dig into the sand, pile up larger stones on the outside.

_“What’cha doin’, Han-zo?”_

“Surviving. What are _you_ doing? Don’t you have _anything_ better to do than to harass me?” Hanzo responded, not bothering to look up from his last ditch effort to make it through this in one piece.

_“You ain’t gotta be like that, Sug’. Iffn’ ya want me gone, I’ll leave.”_

“Yes!” Hanzo gasped, eyes wide and hands flung out in front of him. “Yes, I want you to leave! I _said that already!_ I don’t understand why you haven’t gotten the _hint! Go!”_

_“I was hopin’ you wasn’t serious.”_

He scoffed, almost sure that he heard _disappointment_ in the voice. For a second Hanzo wondered if it was really a good idea to ward off whatever _demon_ was speaking to him. That question only sat in his mind for a split second. _Yokai_ were not prone to helping people out of the _goodness of their hearts._ Demons helped people for a _price_ and it wasn’t one Han was keen on _paying._

“I’m serious. Get out of here, _demon.”_ Hanzo snarled, body tipping dangerously as he began to pile good size throwing stones inside his impromptu fort and prop the tarp up with his Joshua stick and rocks to keep it from falling over. He had to sleep or else-- coyotes or no coyotes-- Hanzo would be dead.

 At first, he thought the being wouldn’t listen. He kept expecting the thick southern drawl to whisper in his ear again or to smell the scent of tobacco and whiskey on the wind but it never came. It was only after the presence finally left that Hanzo started to realize just how _stupid_ that was. Did he really just _shoo off_ a supernatural being?

 On the one hand, it could be a _yokai_ but his entire childhood taught him that most yokai were either ambivalent or malicious. This one had broken the strap on his backpack but that wasn’t _dangerous…_ it was just a trick. It seemed to enjoy playing tricks on him.

 On the other hand, it could be a _kami._ Gods were rarely malicious or benevolent, they tended to just be interested in their own goals. They were usually tied to a certain place and could be appeased by travelers or worshippers who came to the shrine with gifts.

Hopefully, he hadn’t just pissed it off. Hanzo thought he had been surviving pretty well but if he was being _perfectly honest,_ pissing off the resident _spook_ probably wasn’t his _best plan._ _Yokai_ or _kami,_ whatever it was, it wasn’t _malevolent._ It hadn’t tried to hurt him. Sure, that comment about town being the _other way_ might have been in effort to try and get him to head toward his death, but in the stories supernatural creatures tended to find mortality hilarious. Trying to lead him toward his death might not even be a malicious act to the _yokai._

 “Am I really thinking about this right now?” He asked, sitting heavily in the ditch with his back up against the wall of stone. It didn’t _matter_ whether or not it was _friendly;_ he had already scared it off! Hanzo rubbed his head again and looked up at the sky where stars were beginning to just barely twinkle through the bands of purple and magenta. He just really wished that there was some decent sized brush near here to make another torch out of. Sure, lighting the stick itself on fire was an option but it was the only decently sized log he’d found out here. If he burned it, the chances of finding another were slim.

 Just outside the stone, Han could hear the coydog panting. Sure, he might have given the mutt some food but he was _not_ letting it inside his shelter. It hadn’t turned on him _yet._ It was still a wild animal.  
  
He looked up through the opening in the tarp provided by the stick holding it up, squinting as he was sure he saw that damned _crow._

 

\--

 

_“Are you sure you’re going to be ok?”_

Genji shut the door to the shitty motel behind him, leaning against it and turned the bottle of Jim Beam up to chug directly from the mouth of it. Halháta had dropped him off back at the little travel stop so he could pick up his car and the man hadn’t even _made it back home._ No, he’d stopped at the nearest speck that might be _vaguely considered_ a town and picked up a bottle and a room key.

_“Yeah, man. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”_

Right. Wasn’t there a meme about that somewhere? Lucky for him, he just didn’t _care_ any more. He slid down on the bed heavily and looked down at his feet, kicking the tennis shoes off. He didn’t have a _plan._ He didn’t have a change of clothes. Hell, Genji hadn’t even called the company to tell them that the troopers were turning the search over to the federal government. Which, _let’s be honest here,_ that essentially meant they were giving up. The Feds? Seriously? May as well just start planning his funeral _now._

Another swig of whiskey and a heavy sigh, closing his eyes. Hanzo disappearing had caused this. Hell, He’d been on his way home and he reached into his pocket to grab for the coin that was _always_ there only to find out that it _wasn’t there anymore._ How was anyone supposed to stay sober through this? He shook his head, sniffing heavily as his mind very _helpfully_ produced an image of Hanzo’s disappointed frown. Hanzo wouldn’t understand because it had always been so _easy_ for him.

Just another example of how he’d never be the perfect son.

After this, he’d have to put the bottle away again and Genji _could_ put the bottle away again and never drink from it again. He _could…_ or at least that was what he told himself. He’d tried and failed for years to put the bottle down before Hanzo’d had his heart attack but _damn,_ if he didn’t have such _shitty luck_ this would be so much _easier._

 _“Why did you move_ here _of all places if you’re from South Dakota?”_

That guide had looked at him with _pity_ when he’d mentioned grabbing a bottle of something to take the edge off. If only Sojiro could see his youngest child _now,_ wallowing the loss of his aniki at the bottom of a bottle in the kind of motel that was paid by the _hour_ in _cash_ while trying to delude himself into thinking that he could actually just pretend none of this ever happened tomorrow. What would _Mother_ think?

It didn’t matter what Mother thought. She had barely been a factor in his life before she’d died and it had happened when he was so young that Genji snorted as he took another swig. Who _cared_ what Mother thought? Fuck Father too! Dying at the _worst time possible._ He should have taken better care of himself if he knew that he had _heart problems._

Genji’s face twisted as he thought about the fact that Hanzo’d had a heart attack before the age of 30. Han didn’t _deserve_ that kind of fate, never had. Aniki had done everything in his power to try and make Genji’s life _easier._ Flying into the sun like some kind of demented Icarus, Genji had done everything in his power to earn his father’s ire and yet, he always _knew--_ There had never been any _doubt_ that if he was ever _truly_ in trouble, Hanzo would show up like he _always did_ and push Genji behind him to take the brunt of the punishment.

Hanzo’d always had a nasty messiah complex.

“Too bad you couldn’t save _yourself!”_ Genji slurred at nothing, staring vacantly at the TV and wondering _when_ he’d managed to get so _drunk._ He looked down, realizing that the bottle he’d purchased was nearly empty already. It was only the heartbroken way Hanzo had looked at him in that tourist office that had kept Genji from buying more than one.

He really _should_ have bought more than one. Genji wanted to be too drunk to _think_ about what had been lost. The brother who was _never coming back._

_“I came here to find something that was lost.”_

Fuck that guide too with his stupid _beautiful_ cheekbones and his _gorgeous_ white-star freckles that made him want to trace them with a finger and see if they caused shivers like he _hoped_ they would. _Fuck him._

“How about you find _Hanzo?”_ Genji hissed, feeling hot tears slide down his face _again._ Wasn’t it _bad enough_ that he had to feel like shit? Why did he have to _look like shit too?_ “Why can’t you find my _aniki? Huh?!”_  
  
He snarled and threw the empty bottle at the antique television set, sinking to the bed as the wreckage of glass bottle and ancient vacuum tube sparked on the fugly 70’s end table. He didn’t need them to find _glyphs_ or what the _fuck_ ever! He needed them to find his big _brother!_

“I need you to find _Hanzo..”_ Genji whimpered, shoving both hands into his red, bloodshot eyes as a sob tore unbidden through him _again._ Admitting it was like ripping off a piece of flesh; Genji _knew_ if he really sat down and spoke the truth to himself, he _knew_ that he would _never_ get out of this bottle alone.

A heartbreaking reality that came with being an addict who had already gathered up the wherewithal to pull _themselves_ out of their vice was never being able to _truly_ play the ignorance card. It was a matter of convincing _yourself_ that you were fine with the bottle. It was a matter of rationalizing the _irrational_ and convincing _yourself_ that you would be ok…

… but when you’d already put yourself through the twelve steps and admitted that you _have_ a problem, it makes it that much _harder_ to rationalize. You drink because you’re in pain, then you drink _because_ you _caved into_ the pain. It starts as a way to try and numb the ache of losing a person and it ends as a way to lose _yourself._  
  
“I need you to find _Hanzo..”_ He whispered to himself, biting his lower lip in an effort to stem the tide of tears. “Who’s gonna _help me_ if he’s _gone?”_

_Demons run but count the cost; the battle’s won but the child is lost._

 

\--

 

“You know, you can’t keep him.”

The sound of wings flapping as the crow sat down beside the coydog, watching the poorly constructed shelter below. The coydog barely turned its head to acknowledge the presence beside it while it looked over the man inside as a protector should.

The moon was bright tonight, illuminating the land and the edges, allowing for a near perfect view of all that needed to be seen along. Night was a dangerous time for anyone in the desert, predator or prey. They _all_ needed to be careful not to fall into the unseen dangers that lurked in the periphery. Just out of sight, just out of _reach,_ lay things the human mind wasn’t _capable_ _of comprehending_ much less fighting it off. The crow reached out, wings becoming flesh and sinew to pluck the cigarillo from the lips of his companion, regarding the now-man for a moment.

 _“You know you ain’t s’possed to come into my territory and make claims on what I can ‘n cannot do here.”_ The tobacco vice was snatched back from ringed fingers, making the crow laugh as it was so wont to do. _“Ain’t you a little far from home, Thunderbird?”_

A slashed brow raised, almond eyes regarding his vaquero counterpart for a moment or two while deciding if this particular fight was worth it. It was, of course, but the point was rather to allow Coyote to choose to continue his barking or let the Thunderbird speak. Crow feathers sparkled with untapped potential against his back, a smile coming to his lips while he once again stole the cigarillo and sucked down a lungful of that black cancer. Perched on the apex of this mountain, partially transformed, he may have passed for some kind of avenging angel but there were no angels here. Only checks and balances; pragmatic deities with their own kind of favors to ask.

“You have to give him back.” The tall, feathered creature spoke, flicking the ashes as his bracelets clicked lightly together. “He has a family. A home. He has time yet.”

Eyes like night set below a wide-brimmed hat turned to regard his twin-braided counterpart. They narrowed as Thunderbird offered him the cigar back and opted instead to take another from his belt and light it with a snap of his left hand. _“That boy down there is hankerin’ after a home that ain’t there no more. He don’t know what home is.”_

A smirk settled onto the white-freckled face, Thunderbird’s eyes sliding to once again regard the man asleep in his shelter below. “Do you think he’ll learn what home is before this place kills him? You would have done better to leave him in the desert.” He drug another puff of smoke from the cigarillo, now matching Coyote puff for puff.  
  
_“Iffn’ you’re plannin’ on telling me how to do my job, you might oughta leave.”_ The gruff man flicked his ashes and shifted around on the ledge, the sound of spurs filtering down to the unhearing ears below. _“You’re the one who washed him down here in the first place.”_

Thunderbird chuckled, nodding as he put the stub out on the stone. “Yes, I did, and now I’m telling you I want him back. He’s spent plenty of time down here with you, Trickster.”

 _“Yeah, but he ain’t learned nothin’.”_ Coyote stood, brushing off his chaps and stretched into the night sky, the sound of bones popping into place. _“What’s the point of playin’ a trick if he ain’t gonna get nothin’ but a trauma out of this. We send that boy back, he’s just gonna go back to his old ways. That ain’t no good.”_

Thunderbird bobbed his head, “Ah but if we don’t send him back soon he may not have any family left to go back _to.”_

He looked back at Thunderbird just in time to watch the large deity turn back into a single small crow and begin to fly away. If his guest died on this stay, he’d never be able to learn the lesson that Coyote had to teach him.  
  
_Alright, I’ll play your game, Thunderbird. Iffn’ you stay out of my way, I’ll keep the bastard alive._

 

\--

 

Genji hadn’t stopped to think about what Hanzo would think of him. He refused to think about it, to give it the time it so clearly deserved. _Especially_ now. He pulled his hood a bit closer over his features, closing his eyes as he tried not to think about the compulsion and how _easy_ it would be to just walk out of here, to just put these on the nearest shelf and just _leave._ As if it could ever be that simple to _anything_ in his life any more.  

The lights in here were _intense_ and Genji could _swear_ he was already hung over which wasn’t _possible_ but he was so _sure._ He honestly wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten into this convenience store in the first place. There wasn’t exactly a grocery store which would have been his preferred place but it also wasn’t a devoted liquor store so that… helped. _Mildly._ He sighed some and continued to wander through the small aisles and tried not to think about what he was about to _do._

Surely the clerk thought he was going to steal the stuff, which wasn’t the case. Genji had no problem paying for the liquor and doing this the legal way. Many Americans also couldn’t tell how old asian men were just by looking for them but, no, he wasn’t underage either. It wasn’t that this was illegal or that he was going to try and do something that would get him thrown in jail. It was that when he looked down and saw the sloshing amber liquid inside each bottle it _called to him._

Worse than that, his body wanted to answer the call. After all, that’s how he’d ended up here, staring at enough alcohol to kill him and wondering if he could drink it all before he passed out from the _first_ bottle all the while knowing that it was the _worst_ decision he could make.  
  
...but was it really his decision? Really? It’s not like life had given him all that many choices. Genji hadn’t _asked_ to be an alcoholic. He hadn’t _asked_ for his brother to get swept into the desert. He hadn’t _asked_ for any of this. This was being _inflicted_ on him and he had no fucking say in this whatsoever.

He could hear the sound of his brother in his ear, snorting derisively as he was so prone to doing. Hanzo wouldn’t buy that load of bullshit any more than Genji ultimately did. We are not passengers in our bodies, we are drivers. Hanzo would be _infuriated_ that Genji was even allowing himself to fall down that rabbit hole in his train of thought because their entire lives, Hanzo had been convinced that he was in control of his actions and the world directly surrounding him with his karma or… _whatever._ His brother owned more self-help books than you could shake a stick at.

Then again, Hanzo is _also_ the guy who just got sucked down a fucking _hole_ in the ground. Self-help your way out of _that._

“Uh, Sir?” The clerk called over and waved a bit at Genji. The pizza-faced kid who had likely never been 30 miles further than the outside of this town in his _life_ and garbed in a red Casey’s shirt was leaning over the counter and waving lightly at him. He sighed and looked up at the teenager, wondering if this guy was even legally able to _sell_ the liquor to him in the first place. “Uhm, are you ok?”

 _Wow._ Wonder what brought him to ask _that._ Was it the red-rimmed eyes or maybe the slightly green expression? _Maybe_ it was the fact that Genji _smelled_ like a homeless man and was wearing the same shorts he left his house in 56 hours ago? _Maybe_ it was the goddamn _family-sized_ bottle of _Jack?_

Whatever it was, Genji was _not amused in the slightest._ He turned and pinned a sharp glare on the poor, unsuspecting white kid from bum-fuck _nowhere,_ and just _let it rip._ “Nope!” He laughed, shaking his head and slowly advancing on the counter.  
  
“Nope, I’m absolutely _great!”_ The youngest son of Shimada laughed, taking every step with purpose. He grinned and it was _absolutely_ the scariest shit this poor teen had ever _seen._ ‘Good,’ Genji thought, knowing it was malicious and finding it just so hard to _give a damn._  
  
“My brother is _probably_ dead. It’s kind of up in the air! He _could_ be alive and he could _also_ just be a corpse in the middle of the desert right now! Nobody has _any_ fucking _idea!_ ” His face stretched into a nasty sneer, “Do you know how that _feels?_ My brother has gone and become _Schrodinger's_ goddamn _cat!”_

The teenager had backed up against the rack of cigarettes that boasted a deal for Camel brand which had Genji snorting in a nearly deranged laughter at how _happy_ the girls on the massively outdated poster looked to be in the desert. He had just come from _out there_ and there was _nothing_ worth smiling that _fucking widely_ for. None.

“Dude, I just wanted to know if you were ok… Uh, Do you want to buy that or like… do you need me to call you a ride? If you don’t stop yelling, I’m gonna have to call the police.” Well, it seemed the kid had a spine after all. That was probably the most _pitifully poetic_ things about this entire ironic catastrophe. This kid had more fucking power to keep his head screwed on straight in an, admittedly, _terrifying_ spot with an enraged drunkard between him and the door.

Is this what his life had come to? It wasn’t bad enough that he’d gone his entire adult life bouncing from one bottle to the other, drinking his way through whatever money he’d been allowed to handle. Hell, when Hanzo had cut him off from the majority of the funds, he should have _known_ that Genji had a problem. He’d dropped clean at the surprise drug test that he _knew_ his brother had ordered and apparently that was more than good enough for Hanzo to decide it was fine.

‘Just cut off his money, Genji will be ok!’ His mind helpfully mocked, snarling at the vision of Hanzo that seemed to be _just_ out of reach in his third eye.

Was that even right? Could someone who wasn’t a monk have a third eye? Did it even really matter? He was essentially talking to a ghost no matter how you looked at it. That Cat’s chances of being dead when he finally popped open the box kept getting higher and Genji could feel his control on _everything_ slipping. With every second, every word, every step toward the register his body began to reject what he was doing to it while some place in the back of his mind realized that something was terribly _wrong._

He’d thought his mind was just playing tricks on him, that something to do with his rage was the reason those previously bright lights had been dimming. He thought that it was the _drink_ that caused the intense fear to tighten and coil in his chest--

There was a TV behind the concerned teen at the counter, playing just audibly enough for Genji to discern the words. A picture of his brother, smiling tightly because it had been taken for the board of directors on a day when stocks had just dropped, had been blown up and flung across the local news. “...update on the case of the man currently lost in the desert. The state department has asked that no more volunteers come to comb the desert--”  
  
Genji looked up to the teenager, baring his teeth as he pointed to the television. “That’s my brother, you know?” Even the words hurt to say as he hissed them through grit teeth. “That’s my brother that they’ve all been out there looking for and no one has _found him._ We’ve been searching for _days.”_  
  
He shook his head, eyes glued to the tube as it broadcast his worst nightmares. Everything that Genji had been running from with this bottle and the hotel room; all the effort that he’d put into shoving his head into the sand for naught… because there it was. In the little marquee rolling at the bottom of the broadcast the words rolled past over, and over, _and over._

_‘Missing man, 27, presumed dead. Missing man, 27, presumed dead. Missing man, 27, presumed dead.’_

This entire time of Hanzo being gone, Genji had never once doubted that he might not be alive. There had been something, the sibling bond or _something_ that had kept him from ever succumbing to that sinister and insidious creeping thought that Hanzo just might be _gone…_ But there it was. He knew somewhere deep in his chest where at some point a _heart may have resided_ that his brother was finally _dead._

They were right. No one survived out in the desert for that long.

It broke him. Genji gasped and staggered forward, both of the bottles coming to rest on the counter with a clatter that seemed to ring far louder in his ears than it had any right to do. The youngest son, the _only_ son now he was all that was _left,_ felt his world swirl as the darkness that had swam in the corner of his vision for _days_ finally crept further in. It threatened to engulf him as his knees buckled under the weight of _knowing_ that there was _no one left._

“Please…” The teenager was saying something to him and he couldn’t _hear_ it. He was having too much trouble just trying to stay _awake_ as he crumpled against the counter and then slid to his back. “Please call an ambulance… Call an ambulance… 911… _please…”_ His chest hurt. Genji’s entire chest was throbbing with pain, tearing apart at the seams while his lungs _screamed_ for air and he gasped for help. The _whooshing_ of blood in his ears sounded so loud that he couldn’t even confirm if the teen was calling for help or not but he _prayed._

 _“Please…_ Tell them that I’m an alcoholic… Tell them I _consent_ to being put in _treatment.”_ Was this how Hanzo had felt while he laid on the floor of that office? 28 minutes of this _torture--_

This is what karma feels like. _Instant karma._

“Sir?” Genji pulled his eyes open from where he hadn’t even realized that they’d fallen shut, rolling his head to slowly look that acne-afflicted boy in the eye again. “I called for an ambulance… and I told them that you were an alcoholic. They told me to make sure you stay awake and try and get you to drink water.”  
  
After all that, this _child_ was offering him water? Genji smiled, lips twisting around a smile that nearly ripped his face apart to let it be _known._ His brother was dead and yet he was _smiling_ at this kid for being kind to him, now in his moment of need. “Thanks man.” He said with a groan, hissing a breath in his chest and wondered if he’d just experienced the same thing that his brother had. What had they called it? The Octopus trap heart… it came from stress…  
  
The broken heart syndrome.  
  
That was a fairly accurate description. If his feelings were right, and _gods_ they _felt_ right, then his older brother had just died. What else could have caused such a reaction in his body than the loss of someone so near and dear? The curious part was the fact that there had not just been a reaction _inside_ of him… but in the lights here too.

 _‘If anyone had a soul big enough to cause a physical reaction from the world when they left, it would be Hanzo.’_ Genji mused, pursing his lips against the involuntary smile it evoked. Han wouldn’t be proud of how he’d gotten here. Not in the least. But he’d be _proud_ of the fact that he’d asked for _help._

“Can I get you anything else? Are you comfortable?” The kid, Jeff by the name tag, asked. He was nervous and twitching and Genji couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped. It bubbled up like a fountain and nothing he did would shut it _off._

“Nah… You’ve done plenty for me, kid. _Arigatou.”_

When the ambulance showed up it was accompanied by State Trooper Morrison. Genji’s first assumption was that he was about to pick up _another_ drunken disorderly and that had probably been the plan when Jack decided to come with this particular bus. Lucky for him, the old trooper only sighed when he saw the Japanese man. The circumstances changed significantly when you knew how much _pain_ the offender was in and how _little_ damage had been done. The shop hadn’t been ruined; no bottles had been broken.  
  
Genji had even been midway through paying the kid for the bottle of water so he didn’t get in trouble with his boss.

“Oh Genji.” The man sighed, pulling off his hat and walked closer. Each step clicked on the scuffed linoleum flooring and the man settled down to look the drunken fool in his sad brown eyes. “Your brother wouldn’t want this for you.”  
  
“I know..” He couldn’t help the way it came out tight, throat closing around the words before he even managed to process what had been said. “I know he wouldn’t and I’m… I’m sorry, sir. I called to be taken to the hospital…”

“I heard about that. I’m proud of you, punk. Not for this disaster but asking for help is hard to do and there are bigger men out there who can’t do it.” For once, Jack Morrison cracked a smile and this close to him, Genji could see twin gashes over his face. One from the base over his lip and one up over his cheek and eyebrow. In his confused and liquor addled mind, he even allowed himself to ponder how the trooper might have gotten them.

“I’m not strong… If I was strong, I wouldn’t have even drank the stuff to begin with.” Genji choked on the words, swallowing thickly around the _pain._ Hanzo would be so _disappointed._ That irrational place in his mind that could blame _everyone else_ for his drinking habits was now turned inward to remind Genji with it’s taunting voice that Hanzo had been alive _up until he had gotten drunk._ It gleefully suggested that this might even be _his fault._

After all, Hanzo wouldn’t have even come out to the desert if it weren’t for him and now he was skipping work to get drunk in the middle of _nothing_ on the side of Route 66.  
  
Morrison heaved a heavy sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. “Alright kid, enough blubbering for you. You’re such a mess. Get up.” A strong arm wound under his own and began to pull him up from his wallowing on this filthy floor in the middle of a dusty shop. “Come on, Get _up.”_ Jack roughly pulled him to his feet and stood there waiting until Genji managed to settle his legs underneath him enough to actually support some weight.

“Listen. Shit happens. _Bad_ shit _happens to people._ But that isn’t a reason to just give up. It sucks. _Boy_ does it _fucking suck_ but you have to drag your sorry ass up and keep moving.” Jack started to help him, the pair of them stumbling across the gas station to the waiting EMT outside.  
  
“I’m _trying._ I’ve been trying but it’s just so _hard…_ I don’t know _anybody--”_ Genji whispered harshly, shaking his head.  
  
“Guess what, brat? You know _me._ I don’t leave _anyone_ behind. So you just dust yourself off, soldier. I’m riding up here with you to the hospital and I’m calling Long Feather and we’re gonna get you back on your feet.”

 

\--

 

To be completely frank, the heat out here was starting to get _obnoxious._ He just wanted to wake up _one_ morning and not be _caked_ in sweat and _grime._ Just once! The wind blew and brought a cooling breeze to the fort but _also_ filled his open mouth with sand and Hanzo _grimaced_ while sitting up and spitting the grit out. “I hate this place.” He sighed, rubbing his face miserably with the defeated expression of a man plagued both in his dreams _and_ awake. Looking to the side where the heat was most _oppressive_ , Hanzo realized that the coydog had curled up inside the fort with him at some point. It was a good thing this ugly mutt was actually kind of endearing. If he was being perfectly honest he would have tried to eat it if it weren’t so damn _adorable._

 _Fuck_ it was entirely too _hot_ for this. 

“Alright you… Don’t try to be nice to me now, I’m not taking you home.” Hanzo groaned, sitting up and rubbed his face to try and feel less _disgusting._ He needed a bath and all his mind’s eye could focus on was how good slipping into the heat of an onsen would feel right now. A good scrub down and a long soak. _Mmm…_

Too bad that wasn’t an option. It was another day and he’d already slept too long. The coydog had roused from its sleep, having the _gall_ to drape itself over Hanzo’s legs, and was now whining at him as if it didn’t want to get up _either_ . He just couldn’t handle this animal right now.  
  
“Get off.” Hanzo frowned, pulling his feet out from under the beast and began to slowly move his stiff muscles and get moving. In the past few times of waking, he’d learned the hard way that an absence of liquid caused some _odd_ reactions in the body. You expected delirium and dry mouth, what you didn’t expect was muscle spasms. The charley horses were _brutal._

The confusion was also pretty bad. Focusing was nearly _impossible._ His mind had taken the phrase ‘charley horse’ and run off with it, trying to fathom why it was so popular in America to call a muscle spasm that and without his trusty-rusty internet provider, Hanzo simply had no way of knowing.

“Coydog, if you’re gonna sleep by me you’re gonna need a name.” He said, looking down at the mutt who only stared back up and cocked his head ever so slightly to the side. “I can’t keep calling you coydog. It won’t work.”  
  
Too bad he couldn’t actually think of any names he liked. The dog cocked its head to the side as if waiting for him to follow through and actually give him a name, but Hanzo couldn’t think of anything decent right now. _‘Koinu’_ came to mind but honestly, that wasn’t much better than ‘coydog.’ A puppy by any other language… still meant puppy. “I’ll… I’ll get back to you.”  
  
The animal simply snorted at him. Hanzo tried to pretend that there must have been dust in its nose but the eye contact suggested an uncomfortable level of intelligence. “Oh shush you.” He muttered beneath his breath and looked away, finally just ignoring the animal for the time being. “I am _not_ putting off naming you. I just haven’t decided what I want to use yet!”

Dogs were not allowed to have deadpanned expressions.

Hanzo finally just grabbed his bag and opened it up to start filling the supplies inside. As he pushed the tarp down along the side of the cool water bottles, shoving the heavy containers back away from the edge of the backpack before zipping it up.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was travel in the daylight but there was no choice. Sitting still with the pack still wandering around was not an option. It would be really nice if there was some kind of god out here who could help him, but he lived here in _reality,_ and the _reality_ of it was that the supernatural did not exist. As if able to hear his thoughts, the creature reached out and _pawed_ at his leg.  
  
He threw the mildly sloshing backpack up onto his shoulder and began to start climbing out of the pit he’d dug to stay cool. The _mutt_ was whining again, getting up to follow him just as far as the edge. Hanzo turned back to look inside, sighing with an aggravated growl at the _infuriating_ creature. _“What_ do you _want?!”_

...but then it dawned on him all of a sudden that the backpack felt heavy. The dog was watching him with an expectant expression and Hanzo could _swear_ the animal was _raising its eyebrow._

“No. No, it’s not possible. You’re full of shit and _not a god_ and it’s not _possible.”_ Hanzo whispered, ripping the bag back open with enough force that it threatened to nearly rip the zipper off its track. His hand tightened around the _blessedly_ cool bottle and tugged it free from the backpack, dropping the garish yellow bag on the ground.

It was full. The damned bottle was _full of water._ Hanzo nearly dropped it _too_ in his haste to open them up and begin to chug it down. Every single droplet of water that dripped down his chin was caught with a finger, brought back up to try and get every last bit of moisture from it.

There was water in bottles that were empty the night before. What's more, the wrappers he’d crammed inside his bag so as not to litter were now full of protein bar again. The empty bag that used to be trail mix was once more full and sealed as if it had _just_ been purchased at the store.

Hanzo was _completely_ sure that the gatorade bottle was _new._

Where had this come from? It wasn’t as if he could have just _hallucinated_ his water bottles being empty, right? He couldn’t have just _hallucinated_ eating the food already, right? A flash of black feathers to his right caused Han to jump, recognizing the crow as it fluttered to pluck at a bit of dropped trail mix.

_“Mornin’, Han-zo.”_

Hanzo spun on his heel looking for the voice and noticed the coydog had walked closer and nudged his head with one foot. Against his better judgement, Han bent down and gently pet over the russet brown fur on it’s head. He might not have realized it before but now it was more obvious, the voice was coming from the dog.  “... Ohayo…”

_“Ohio? Ain’t that a state?”_

Great. A stupid deity. That was _exactly_ what he needed in his life. Well, it was to be expected when speaking to an animal god.

“It’s a Japanese greeting. I’m Japanese. It means ‘good morning.’” Hanzo decide he’d play along with the beast. Talk to it, learn from it. He could surely use the companionship if nothing else.

_“Japanese, huh? What’s it like there? I can’t say as I’ve traveled much further than right around here. God of the desert and all.”_

“It’s…” _God of the desert?_ Hanzo paused, considering his options as the crow hopped along near his feet. This same animal, and he was _sure_ that it was indeed the _same crow,_ had been following along throughout his entire journey and some curious part of him wondered if it might be a deity too. If so, he was completely unsure which one. It hadn’t meddled or tried to come close before now.  
  
How did he describe his homeland? It’s beautiful? It’s technologically advanced? It’s ancient and steeped in old tradition? What did he say to describe the place?  
  
“It’s beautiful. It has green everywhere and huge mountains that rise above the sea… It has rich culture and shrines here and there…” Hanzo smiled, closing his eyes. “My home, Shimada Castle--”  
  
_“You lived in a castle?”_

“Hai. It had a zen garden and a large bell house right in front. We had a huge gate and the castle itself towered over the town.” Hanzo spoke wistfully, trying to remember the details. How long had it been since he’d returned to the castle?

 _‘The Castle is a_ museum _now. Remember?’_ Genji’s voice came unbidden into his thoughts and Hanzo shook them away to focus on the beast. The castle was his _home._

“In the spring, the cherry blossoms bloom in front of the castle and the trees are all pink. It’s so pink that it’s almost as if they glow… and the smell? _Sakura_ smells like nothing else in the world.” Hanzo whispered, grasping at straws while he struggled to remember the details. “We had a table that you could put your feet under to keep warm… once, when I was a teenager, we returned to the castle just before they sold it to make it into a museum… It snowed while the _sakura_ was in bloom. It was so beautiful… When we moved to America, I thought I might die.”

_“Why’re you talkin’ like that’s a bad thing? It ain’t a crime to travel and make a new home.”_

“Says you.” To be fair, the god wasn’t wrong… but it didn’t understand leaving home because it was _stuck_ right here in the desert. The nature of a god was that it couldn’t leave its home. He sighed and placed another handful of trail-mix into his mouth, chewing on it slowly and savoring the taste of _food._ “Alright you, What should I call you then? Can you point me in the right direction?”

_“Awh, you can call me whatever you’d like, Sugar… but I can’t help you get out of here. Iffn’ you wanna leave me, you gotta find the way out on your own.”_

Great.  
  
“I’m gonna call you Jesse.” Hanzo huffed, starting toward the place that he thought he had last seen the lights of Las Vegas and shook his head. Could he really trust something that might not even be real? Which of those visions was the mirage? The lights or the darkness?

_“I like the name Jesse. I ain’t had a name in a real long time. Iffin’ you don’t mind my askin’, why that one?”_

Hanzo snorted through his nose, shaking his head at the sheer _lunacy_ that was talking to a disembodied voice in the desert. If you whisper to the void, does it whisper back? 

No, apparently the void chuckles and mentions huckleberries. 

So Hanzo answered, not because he wanted to answer but because he _didn’t_ want the creature to leave him alone to the elements. So long as he continued to entertain the god, he hoped it would continue to take care of him. This thing, _Jesse,_ liked it when he was cheeky, so he’d _keep_ being such until he was able to pull himself out of this _shitshow._

“Because you’re a _crook_ and you’re robbing me of the most valuable thing I have: Time.”

 … and when the deity laughed, Hanzo could swear the entire desert laughed with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'The Devil Went down to Georgia' by the Charlie Daniels Band is the soundtrack of this chapter.
> 
> I'm working this week y'all so illustrating is a real pain to do with no time to do it in. I'm starting a new project though, so that's exciting!
> 
> ~Ladie


	6. No, Coyote, I cursed you.

Calling the board of directors to tell them that he was in the hospital had  _ sucked. _ It sucked  _ ass _ and had he not been so  _ hung over _ he would have come up with a better description for how ridiculously  _ awful _ it was. Genji laid there in bed with his hands on his face for a solid  _ hour _ after getting off the phone with them, listening to the sound of clicking from the IV that sat beside him as it slowly pumped his body full of whatever was inside the ‘Banana Bag’ hanging from the pole.

In hindsight, telling them that he was in the hospital wasn’t really that bad. Being checked into rehab for his alcoholism was something that Genji had done before and the board didn’t really seem to care that he needed to do it again. Or rather, they  _ cared, _ but they cared  _ less _ when he told them that he’d gotten the news last night that the search crew had traded out  _ volunteers _ for  _ cadaver dogs. _

“Ugh…” He groaned, jamming the nurse call light for the millionth time in the last few minutes after he’d gotten off the phone. In retrospect, he’d feel bad and send the floor a ton of flowers and snacks for his terrible behavior but right  _ now? _ Right now he needed some kind of medicine for his  _ wicked headache. _ Actually, forget now, he needed it like  _ twenty minutes ago. _

When the exasperated tech came over the speaker and asked him what he needed, Genji could hear the frustration in her voice and the little tiny conscious that barely made an appearance these days piped up. It sounded suspiciously like Hanzo with its gentle nudging toward the better path and Genji mused that maybe if it barked like Sojiro had it might  _ actually _ help him. 

Regardless, the voice murmured softly as Han was wont to do when he had a headache and reminded him that the nurses had many other patients and no amount of harassing them could make it go any faster. He begrudgingly agreed that the voice of reason was probably onto something. So he blamed it on rolling onto the remote even though they would both know he was  _ lying _ and let her end the call.    
  
_ ‘Hanzo,’ _ He thought, looking up at the ugly and mildly water damaged ceiling tiles and gently rubbed against his breastbone where all that  _ pain _ had resided before and tried to decide if it hurt less or more to accept that his brother was gone.  _ ‘If you’re dead, does that mean you’re watching now? I’m sure you’re pissed off. I wish I had a better explanation for what I did but I don’t. I’m sorry, I’ll do better. I know I say that every time but this time I can’t afford to fuck it up. I can’t lie to an angel.’ _

There was nothing else Hanzo could be; he must have become an angel. Anyone with the patience to put up with Genji for as many years as Hanzo had must have been either blessed or a legitimate saint. Either way, Han was in heaven or nirvana or  _ whatever. _ If it was bright and shiny and free of anxiety, fear, business and pain--  _ that _ was where Hanzo belonged. A better place; a place without  _ Genji _ to worry him all the time.

There was a knock on the door and Genji sat up slowly, fussing with his hair before giving up entirely on trying to look like anything but the pathetic  _ mess _ he was. “Come in.” 

The door opened and the first thing he saw were sequoia braids and a mess of candy bars all stuck up in an edible arrangement.  _ Halháta,  _ of course he would come to visit. He even brought a gift! Genji laughed despite himself, shaking his head as he welcomed the tour guide that had become such a fast friend in the trials that the last few days had given him.    
  
“Hey! I didn’t know what you liked or if you were allergic so I figured candy was a good call. Hopefully. Unless you’re allergic to peanuts.” Halháta babbled, moving into the room and placing the arrangement down on what little space was provided. This hospital had to be a hundred years old because the rooms were _ ludicrously _ small. “If you  _ are _ allergic to peanuts, I volunteer to take this off your hands because it smells  _ amazing _ even through the wrappers.” 

Genji couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head. “Nah, I’m not allergic. Gimme one of those Snickers… and yeah, you can have one. Jesus man, those puppy eyes are dangerous. Put that shit away.”

The guide snickered, promptly ending his Pout of Doom™ in order to pull a few of the candy bars off their sticks. A Snickers was tossed over to Genji and Halháta began tucking into one of the Reese’s cups as he sank into the chair beside the bed. For a while, they were silent, tucking into the candy and not saying a word. The guide had a few false starts, humming and ‘uhm’ing as he chewed over whatever it was that he’d come to say. 

The youngest Shimada, as he would always be referred to in his own mind, had a suspicion about the line of thought that was about to come up. It was something that his pride wished no one ever had to acknowledge, though he knew that the first step was always admitting that you had a problem.

“So…” It was an awkward conversation to start, to be sure, and Halháta wasn’t immune from the uncomfortable nature of it. “You’re an alcoholic, huh?” 

Yup, there it was. It was like no matter how many times that damned elephant got shot it just got back up and ran around for another lap. 

“Yeah. Uh, how’d you know? Other than the obvious?” Genji asked, crumpling his wrapper up into a ball and shot for the trash can in the corner of the room. He missed, no surprises there; he’d always been a terrible shot. 

_ “Well,” _ Halháta’s lips quirked up into a sympathetic smile and he gave a shrug, “if there is one thing a  _ recovering _ addict can spot, it’s one that  _ isn’t _ recovering.” The guide straightened out in his chair to go fishing around in his pocket, soft puffs of air escaping at the effort of digging around. When his hand came back it was wrapped around a green-tinted bronze coin. “Also, this.”   
  
_ “You found it!” _ Genji gasped, reaching out to try and snatch the small chip away from him and was only disappointed as Halháta’s far longer arm pulled it just out of reach. “Give it to me, it’s mine. I  _ earned _ it.” 

That sympathetic smile turned into something more like an empathetic  _ grimace. _ “Yeah, you earned it… but last night, you  _ lost _ it. You can’t have this one back, man. You’re not a year sober anymore.”

The truth of it, however gently it had been delivered,  _ hurt. _ Genji had lost the one thing he had to be proud of at the same time he’d lost everything else and the pale hand reaching for the tan-and-freckled one faltered. Of course.  _ Of course. _

“Hey now, chin up.” 

Genji lifted his eyes, rubbing away the moisture that hadn’t yet fallen so that it wouldn’t have a  _ chance to. _ In front of him was that hand, covered in various rings and a wrist toting bangles from trips all across America and in the tanned fingers was an aluminum coin. 

_ 24 hours. _

“So, I called the chapter in Phoenix… It took some doing since the whole point of it is to be Anonymous but I made sure they knew you were ok,” The man gently pressed that aluminum coin into his hand where the room temperature IV fluid had made the digits cold, staying there to warm his fingers and provide support where Genji so desperately needed it. “If you’re alright with it, if you’ll have me, I’d like to be your sponsor. You’ve been through some rough _ shit, _ man. I’m worried about you.”

Sponsors had never been something that Genji had ever been particularly good at keeping. It wasn’t as if he called them constantly, it was more like he  _ never _ called them. He didn’t call, he didn’t write, he stood them up for meetings  _ all the time. _ That was the reason that most of them wouldn’t stick around for very long. The only way to be a good sponsor was to actually be in  _ contact _ with the person you were sponsoring. As it was, Genji  _ hated _ admitting his problems and talking to other people about them. 

The first step was admitting you had a problem. That didn’t say  _ anything _ about admitting it to  _ other people. _

“You won’t like being my sponsor.” Genji mumbled, pulling his hand back and beginning to turn the coin in his fingers. His old one had been bronze and heavier; this one was so light he could barely tell it was there. Then again, it was only the 24-hour chip and he hadn’t even quite earned that yet. It wouldn’t even really be his till the wee hours of the next morning. 

“Says who?” Halháta asked, raising an eyebrow with a bemused smile slowly blooming over his features. “You? I hate to tell you this kid, but you don’t get to make that decision  _ for _ me.”

The bed-mussed head snapped up, Genji’s eyes locking onto the laughing sequoia set. There might not have been audible laughter but the tiny crinkles beside Halháta’s eyes that suggested more age than was initially obvious also hinted to snickers just under the calm veneer. “Oh really? Well, I’ve had a lot of sponsors before and they’ve all dropped me. Apparently, I don’t  _ talk _ to them enough.”

The guide gave a shrug, the laughter finally spilling forward as he shook his head. “Well, that’s  _ funny. _ Since the day I met you, you haven’t  _ shut up.” _

“Oh fuck off.” Genji tried to be angry, he really did, but it was hard to when this  _ idiot  _ was  _ laughing _ his fool head off and now currently ducking as Genji grabbed candy out of the arrangement and began to pelt him with it. 

“Ow, shit!” At some point, Genji had begun to laugh  _ with him, _ “Dude! Seriously, ow, man-- How do you throw those so hard? Jesus Christ!”

He wouldn’t replace Hanzo, nobody could replace  _ Hanzo, _ but Halháta was someone that he might actually  _ call _ instead of letting himself drink into oblivion next time. Having a sponsor assigned to you was all well and good but this was someone he felt comfortable enough around to talk to about the nitty gritty shit. 

Anyone that was chill enough to help his dumb ass limp to the bathroom because he bruised the  _ fuck _ out of his tailbone when he hit the ground was cool enough to call before he made another  _ awful _ decision.

 

\--

 

_ “Han-zo…” _

After a long time spent wandering fruitlessly in the desert, burning through his new supply of water far quicker than Hanzo was comfortable with, the man had finally settled down and begun to work on a shelter where he could rest until the sun went down. He wasn’t able to tell which way town was and it was swelteringly hot out here. “Yes, Jesse?” 

He wondered what the deity looked like. Was it actually a dog or was there something else going on there? Would it be Native American like the guide? He tried to imagine a tall tanned man wearing traditional leathers and body-paint speaking in such a clear and obvious southern accent but he simply  _ couldn’t. _ That wasn’t what came to mind. When he heard Jesse speak, he thought of a  _ cowboy. _

Chaps, jeans, a huge belt buckle and ugly spurs on worn boots. He didn’t think of rain dances, he thought of cattle runs. When he imagined Jesse, Hanzo didn’t imagine dark braids; he imagined a ten-gallon hat.

The only problem with the sweet southern hospitality that had been given so far was that Jesse wasn’t about to lead him out of here. A god who could make him feel so at ease so quickly and pretend to be his friend was good, but ultimately, Jesse wouldn’t even lead Hanzo to the  _ river _ that his fur had been wet on before. It seemed the creature wanted to keep Hanzo dependent on him and it was scary to ever be so reliant on something that he didn’t fully understand.

It wasn’t as if the deity hadn’t been kind though. When he finished downing his first bottle of water, it was refilled. When he asked for something with a bit more substance rather than trail mix, a still cool tray of sushi was produced from thin air. To his great surprise Jesse was also rather charming, something of a southern gentleman. The only problem it the  _ kami _ seemed to have was that it was impossibly  _ lonely. _

_ “Ain’tcha tired of wandering?” _

It wasn’t as if Jesse had come out and  _ told _ him that he was lonely. No, it was the little things that the deity did such as asking him what his favorite foods were or suggesting that he stop and rest.  _ Often. _ For the entire day of wandering around with this man whispering in his ear, Hanzo found himself feeling bad for him at times. How long had it been since he had anyone to talk to? The being had a list of humans who had run from him that was a mile long… perhaps they hadn’t seen this benevolent side of the deity?

“I’m not wandering, Jesse. I’m going home.” None of that was a particularly strange thing for  _ kami. _ Immortal beings varied wildly from impossibly wise to incredibly immature, often times within a few minutes, because they didn’t  _ understand _ human mortality or the things associated with it. Jesse was lonely, Hanzo was trapped out here. In the logic of an immortal deity tied to a place where they could provide  _ everything _ for a mortal, it simply made  _ sense _ to him that Hanzo would want to stay. 

The problem with that logic was that it didn’t take into account that Hanzo had a  _ family _ and a  _ life _ outside of this place that he needed to attend to. There were other things out there that called his name that he couldn’t just  _ abandon. _

Though, he couldn’t deny that the idea of staying out here where a creature could just take care of all his worldly needs and keep him comfortable was an  _ enticing _ idea. 

_ “Don’tcha wanna stay here? I can give ya anythin’ you want.” _

Hanzo puffed out a breath, smiling fondly to himself. He sounded like a petulant  _ child _ that was bargaining with their parent for  _ sweets. _ “Could you give me someone to actually talk to? I don’t want to speak to thin air, Jesse. Give me someone to talk to or let me go.”

Maybe  _ that _ would deter him. So far the god hadn’t been keen on showing his face in the broad sunlight and Hanzo was willing to bet that he wouldn’t  _ now _ either.

_ “Well, now, that ain’t how it works. I’m s’pposed to make you learn the lesson and if I just let you go, that ain’t gonna teach you much, now is it?” _

A lesson? Well, not just any lesson,  _ the _ lesson. Whatever that meant.

“So you’re a god with a parlor trick. That’s fun. Any chance you’ll tell me what I’m supposed to be learning here?” Hanzo tried, hearing the sound of coyotes in the distance. They hadn’t attacked him in the night while he’d been passed out, so maybe they would keep their distance as long as Jesse was… around. If the only prerequisite for getting home was making a deal with the devil, sobeit. 

_ “I ain’t the devil and I ain’t telling you nothin’. You gotta figure it out on your own.” _

“Oh, so you’re digging around in my head now, huh? What’s that all about?” Hanzo growled, his mood taking a sudden dive as he realized that  _ Jesse _ was apparently a fucking mind reader. “I do  _ not _ want anyone digging around in my brain so you can stop that shit  _ right now.” _ It was bad enough that he was out in a desert with sand where the sun didn’t shine, he didn’t need a deity digging around in his gray matter.

_ “I’m sorry, Darlin’. I ain’t had nobody to talk to in a long time, ‘specially nobody as interestin’ as you. I’m not used to keeping to myself. If you don’t like it, I can stop.” _

“ _ Please. _ I don’t need you in my head.” Hanzo grit out, though he’d have to keep an eye on his thoughts anyway now that he knew Jesse could just look at them whenever he pleased. “Why am  _ I _ interesting, anyway?” That wasn’t something he was just about to let go. Any time you could manage to get a deity to look at you, it was either an incredibly  _ good thing _ or the  _ worst possible scenario.  _ There really was no middle ground to speak of.

_ “Well, most people are real plain. They’re from ‘round here and they got simple problems that have simple answers. I twist em around in circles a little while and they figure it right out. You’re from someplace else  _ and _ you ain’t the least bit scared of me!” _

That, at least, made sense. If it was a benevolent deity, and everything suggested that it was, then it would want to have someone to talk to. Most people around here were afraid of voices that didn’t proclaim to be Jesus Christ; the smart individuals were even  _ more _ afraid of the ones that  _ did. _ None of them would be interested in talking to Jesse and having a legitimate conversation with him. Hanzo continued to sip his newly refilled water and hummed.    
  
“Well, you’re right… my home is different. We don’t think of voices like the people around here do.” Hanzo conceded, shrugging as he continued to dig at his makeshift building.

_ “Well, your home is just like everyone else ‘round these parts.” _

“...what?” That didn’t make any sense.  _ Hanzo _ was the only one who could decide what and how his home was. The sheer  _ audacity _ at telling him his own opinions was… well, even with the mind reading it spoke to a complete and utter lack of tact. “What is that supposed to mean?”

There was no reply. The air was silent while he waited for the animal to speak talk to him again, but when he looked up, Hanzo noticed that the coydog was gone and he was alone. “Goddamnit! Why is that  _ fucking _ dog always  _ gone _ when I need him!”

Then again, he didn’t even know why he was surprised. It was a  _ god. _ No matter how kind this one had acted to him, he couldn’t shake the instinct in the back of his mind that told him something about this entire interaction was  _ wrong. _ Gods were narcissistic to a fault and only concerned with their own interests. If he died out here in the next few minutes, Hanzo was reasonably certain that Jesse wouldn’t even  _ notice _ or  _ care. _

What was worse here? The infuriating  _ impotence _ that he felt knowing that he had  _ no control _ over if he lived or died? No, it wasn’t that, it was the terrifying realization that there was a  _ self-absorbed _ being out here who fancied playing with his fate and now wanted him to solve a  _ riddle _ that he wouldn’t give any clues to. 

Not to even bring up the fact that there were coyotes closing in. Had Jesse been the one holding them back this whole time? Now that he’d decided to go AFK, would they come and attack Hanzo? Why couldn’t Han  _ bring up _ these things to the god? It was like that blasted creature would say a few words and then his brain was filled with insecurity. How did you tell a god that it was  _ wrong? _   
  
Against his better judgement, he picked up his backpack and began walking again, leaving behind the partially dug hole that he’d been working on. He didn’t know the rules of this place but he knew if he was going survive here, he needed to find a way to force the creature to help him. Maybe that meant being as unpredictable as possible? Hanzo shook his head, reaching into the pocket of his cargo pants where he had put his disassembled phone once they’d dried out. It had been submerged for however long he’d been in that water, but Hanzo had taken it apart several days ago in a desperate bid to let it dry out and see if he could get a signal.    
  
Maybe he could convince it to play a game? Maybe they were  _ already playing _ a game?

Hanzo chewed on that, sitting down on the dune to look around at his surroundings. It was only now that he was  _ really _ looking around that he started to notice the surrounding desert wasn’t quite  _ right. _ The same golden sand that they’d driven past on the way into the tour had become broad stripes of color that Hanzo recognized from some of the other pamphlets that Genji had brought in… more than that, the horizon was  _ constantly _ changing. Shaking his head, he went through the motions of putting his phone back together.

At first, it hadn’t been too obvious. A bit of a difference here and there… Now that he was actually  _ focusing _ on the horizon, that was when he realized that it went from the towering, flat-top plateaus that belonged in Monument Valley, to the wide bands of colored sands from the Painted Desert… As he sat there and just  _ relaxed,  _ the deep cavern of a canyon that was  _ almost _ the Grand Canyon filtered over the ever-changing landscape. Hanzo frowned, chewing on his protein bar as he sat and tried to understand  _ how _ he could have just  _ failed to notice _ a huge hole in the ground.

_ "The canyon is new.” _ The voice returned as the coydog trot along and sat down beside him.  _ “How ya doin’, Sugar?”  _

How dare he ask that? Hanzo grit his teeth, turning to look at the beast before glancing back out at the horizon. “How do you  _ think _ I’m doing? Honestly.”

_ “Hey, you ain’t gotta be like that. I’m not the one who brought you out here.” _

“No, but you’re the one  _ keeping _ me out here.” Hanzo growled, looking at the dog as the voice chuckled in his ear. This god was getting on his last nerve. He pressed the power button and waited, hoping and praying that there was still a little bit of life in this piece of plastic. 

_ “No, I ain’t. You are. You just gotta figure out what you’re s’pposed to be learning and learn it!” _

“With no clues? Without anything to go on?” Hanzo bit out, looking over at the dog for a moment before back to the distorted sound of the phone powering on. Would it really work? He watched, holding his breath as it powered up but instead of the Verizon checkmark… it showed him a cartoon-esque skull with a red cross over it’s left eye. Then the phone shut itself down. It didn’t take much to glance over at the smug coydog to recognize that it was Jesse’s fault his phone didn’t work. Hanzo stood up and threw it across the dunes, yelling to high heaven just to release some of the  _ frustration. _ “How is  _ anyone _ supposed to work with that?!” There was no way to win a game that you didn’t know the rules to and it was very likely that  _ that _ was the entire point. 

_ “I dunno, but you’re pretty smart for a mortal. I’m sure you’ll figure somethin’ out.” _

Talk about a backhanded compliment. Hanzo felt his head begin to throb again, rubbing at his temples as he paced along the sand. “Just… make me a promise, ok?” He frowned, “Give me your word or make me a promise or sign a document or  _ something, _ I want it  _ in writing _ that you’re going to let me out of here if I win.”

_ “Well.. that ain’t hard. I’ll put it in your backpack. I don’t know what all the fuss is about; it’s like you don’t trust me or somethin’.” _

Hanzo snorted through his nose. It wasn’t ‘like’ he didn’t trust the god, he  _ absolutely _ didn’t trust the god. He supposed that he should feel bad for making the deity feel bad, and for a moment he  _ did _ feel bad… but then Hanzo remembered that he was a prisoner here. This creature was holding him prisoner. So he took off his backpack and began searching for the paper that was promised to him. Hanzo needed it in  _ writing. _   
  
_ “If you want me to give you a hint, I will.” _

“But you said you wouldn’t.” It hadn’t even been a day and he was already starting to get sick of the gaslighting. 

_ “I ain’t never said that.” _

“You did!” Hanzo protested, gritting his teeth as his head began to throb. He was  _ not _ imagining this… right? Jesse had absolutely said that he wouldn’t tell him anything… it wasn’t even that long ago! What game was this infernal wretch playing?

…but was it really worth it to contradict a god in his own territory? There was no world in which that answer was ‘yes.’ He’d have to play if he wanted to survive...  “Whatever, whatever. It’s fine, just… yes, I want to have a hint.  _ Kudasai.” _

_ “Well… The hint is that it ain’t nothing.” _

“I… do not understand.” Hanzo frowned, wondering if it was because of the language barrier that he was having so many problems but if he was being completely honest with himself, his language barrier wasn’t that bad. He spoke fluent English and that didn’t mean any more to him than it would to anyone else. “That doesn’t make sense.”

_ “Well… if you need me to spell it out for you…” _

Yes. Yes, he absolutely needed it spelled out.  _ Spit it out, you overgrown pomeranian.  _ Some part of Hanzo’s mind hoped Jesse  _ was _ listening just for that gem. Really, it was unfortunate that he was only allowed to say what he meant inside his own head. If it wasn’t for the fact that this creature essentially had him in a noose with his demands, Hanzo would have just let him have it already. 

_ “When I say you gotta learn your lesson, I don’t even know what it is. Your soul will do this weird magick thing and then I’ll know. Only you know what it is you gotta learn.” _

“That’s a lot of words to say that you’re full of shit.” Hanzo couldn’t help that one as it fell out of his mouth, crossing his arms as the coydog laughed in its strange way and the sound of human chuckling played over in something reminiscent of having two windows in Youtube open at the same time. 

_ “I ain’t lyin’ to you, Han-zo… why you always gotta assume I’m lyin’ to you?” _

“I don’t, I--”Hanzo legitimately  _ didn’t _ think the god was lying to him. Using him for a sick entertainment? Sure. Lying to him? No, that wasn’t what he thought at all. 

_ “Yes you do, Hanzo. You think I’m lyin’ to you. You gotta learn to trust me more.” _

He let out a frustrated growl and rubbed his temples again. The only thing he found that he could trust with this freaking dog was that it would talk him in circles and couldn’t be convinced of anything. “Fine, sure, whatever. I don’t trust you. Are you happy now?”

_ “I’m glad you ain’t lyin’ to yourself any more but I can’t say as I’m happy that you don’t trust me. What do I have to do to convince you that I’m not pullin’ your leg?” _

“You could let me go.” Hanzo snipped, eyes narrowing at the coydog as it cocked its head to the side. The air was silent for just a beat, a heavy absence of sound that almost seemed deceptively like the deity might actually be considering letting him go... but then it laughed and Hanzo picked up a rock and tossed it at the creature in frustration. 

_ “You ain’t very good at learnin’ new things, are ya? I understand, you’re not from around these parts. Don’t worry, I understand.” _

Fucking dog didn’t understand  _ anything. _

Hanzo was just about ready to tear his hair out, pacing and shaking his head as the creature chuckled at its own joke. Proclaiming to understand, pretending that it could somehow know his innermost feelings. Reading the thoughts in his  _ head _ didn’t mean that it understood  _ everything. _ If it did, this dog would understand why it was so infuriating. 

His only choice was to play along; for the sake of escaping this place, he had to nod and smile. Hanzo twisted a tight grimace onto his face and began to walk back to his temporary structure, arms tightly wound around himself as he walked. As angry as he was, there was something more insidious that came from these arguments with the being. 

What if he really was an idiot? What if there really was something wrong with him? If a god said it, did that make it true?

He couldn’t shake the feeling that even while Jesse said that it was alright, that he  _ understood,  _ that Hanzo would still be  _ punished _ for it later. Either in the length of time that the dog vanished to do  _ whatever _ it was he did without a word or in more obvious things like calling him an  _ idiot. _

“I’m going to bed.” Hanzo said, tucking into his little structure once the tarp was put up again, closing his eyes. Even with eating more food and walking less, he was more exhausted than ever before and Hanzo couldn’t help but think that was because of Jesse. The little huff from the coydog only strengthened his feelings.

If there was one thing that Hanzo had gotten good at in the last few days, it was falling asleep in this intense heat. It wasn’t as if he’d ever imagined that he might become used to something like this but here he was, dropping off like it was nothing. Blissfully, he slept dreamless. It was only the change in the sun’s position that even alerted him that he had slept at all. Hanzo certainly didn’t  _ feel _ any more rested. 

As he sat up, he looked around and ran a hand through his grit-filled hair, sighing to himself and looking up at the crow which had settled itself along the edge of his resting place. “What about you, huh? You gonna lecture me too?”  

There was a time in someone’s life where they had been out in the middle of nothing for so long that they stopped having any common sense. Hanzo had found himself in a desert that  _ shifted, _ with a coydog that  _ spoke _ and was actually a  _ deity. _ Talking to the crow didn’t really seem that far off base right now.

Sitting up slowly, Hanzo looked around and tried to assess what time of day it was. It didn’t seem like the time here ran correctly, that was something he’d noticed in the last few ‘days’ while before talking to Jesse. His food and water should have had him hungrier and nearly dying of thirst by the time the deity came around with his all-you-can-eat buffet but he  _ wasn’t. _ On top of that, days didn’t seem to last as long as they should have and the nights seemed to be shorter too.

No matter how long he slept, Hanzo still felt tired. 

The crow only cocked its head some, saying nothing at the question and proceeding to look back up to the full moon in the sky. Another reason Hanzo thought that the time here wasn’t quite right; the moon had been full every night since his arrival. At first that hadn’t seemed odd because his eyes were firmly planted on the ground, but now? Now it was just another clue he’d missed to how  _ strange _ it was. The deity wasn’t the only one playing mind games, it was the land too.

He sighed and leaned his head back against the edges of the same pit that he’d called a temporary home for the last few… well, Hanzo wanted to call it days but he just wasn’t sure any more. The crow hadn’t been a constant companion, not in the least, but it also wasn’t outright malicious. It only seemed to show up when he was  _ truly _ in trouble; that might not make it benevolent but he couldn’t deny that this creature was smart.    
  
It bounced along the sand, holding a bit of something in its mouth and bobbing its head forward to try and get Hanzo’s attention. He couldn’t figure out if it was male or female, birds weren’t as obvious as mammals, but it was pretty… It had a pair of beautiful silver and turquoise rings around both of its ankles and he couldn’t help but think he’d seen those rings somewhere before. 

Hanzo was drawn out of his thoughts by the creature pecking on his fingers. “Ok, ok, give it here.” He took the ripped portion of paper from the bird, trying to pet its head and nearly getting bit for his efforts. “Fine, I see how it is. Be that way then.” He muttered to himself, unfolding the raggedly torn edge and recognized it as his own handwriting. It was half of a post-it note that he’d given to his assistant after someone had made fun of her accent.

_ ‘Remember, Mei… you work for one of the greatest corporations in the world. I could have asked for anyone to be my secretary, but I asked for  _ you. _ Don’t ever forget that.’ _

His lips tipped up in a smile, smoothing his fingers over the bit of paper and read the quote. It felt as if he’d written it a  _ lifetime _ ago; the fairweather deity and the ever-present threat of predators had aged him several years in just a few short days. 

“No one can ever make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt.” Hanzo read, smiling to himself before carefully tucking the piece of paper into his ziplock bag.

_ “What’cha got there, Han-zo?” _

His back with stock-straight, nearly coming right out of his small sand bunker as the crow cawed at him and flew away. “It’s just a note.” He shrugged, turning back around to smile tightly at the coydog as it walked into the structure and sat down at his feet. “Something to help me keep my head screwed on straight.”

_ “To be fair, it wasn’t really screwed on straight to begin with, Sugar.” _ Hanzo had to force himself not to scowl, even as the animal laughed.  _ “I’m teasin’, Han-zo. Lighten up, darlin’!” _

“It didn’t feel like a tease. Please don’t  _ mock _ me.” He looked away, opening up one of the gifted protein bars to begin nibbling on it. This whole thing had him off balance… actually, when it came to Jesse he always felt as if he was on the back foot. He never knew quite what to expect out of the deity and that made him nervous--and not in the pill-popping kind of way either.

_ “I ain’t mockin’ you, I’da thought you’d know better. It’s a joke and if you can’t take a joke, sugar, then that’s on you. It ain’t my fault and I ain’t about to apologize for it.” _ The dog shrugged, cavalier and insulting as usual. 

“So it isn’t bad enough that I have to be your prisoner… you’re going to mock me and then act like an asshole about it? You don’t even apologize?” Hanzo might have been raised in America but his entire family was Japanese. In Japan you apologized for  _ everything. _ Hell, even here in  _ America,  _ it was common to apologize if a joke fell flat even if it wasn’t meant that way.

_ “Why? I’m just gonna do it again, Han-zo. I’m an asshole. Why would I bother to apologize for something I’ll just go ‘n muck up again?” _

Well, he  _ was _ an asshole. At least that much was right, even if absolutely  _ every bit _ of the rest of it was wrong. “Whatever.” Hanzo muttered, turning away from the coydog and tracing the stars in the sky. Nothing here seemed to make sense to him; the landscape was strange and even the constellations were wrong. It all just seemed to be a mixing pot of whatever seemed to fit and ended up with  _ nothing _ fitting at all.

_ “You like the stars?” _ Jesse asked, trying to get his attention once again.  _ “I put em up there like that. I made everything round these parts. You like it?” _

_ ‘Everything?’  _ Hanzo’s mind instantly moved back to the first cave that he’d barely been able to escape and his stomach flipped in disgust. This entire landscape was  _ designed _ to fuck with humans from the twisting horizon that never got any closer to the death-trap caves that were always smaller on the way  _ out. _ “Uh… sure. It’s nice.” It was important to be cordial to the god that could easily kill him.

_ “Let me tell you the story of those constellations.” _

“I’ll pass, really. It’s ok,” He spoke, politely trying to decline but no matter how nicely he told the being ‘no’, it just kept on telling him the story as if he hadn’t said anything at all. Hanzo’s culture told him when someone continued to talk, it was polite to remain quiet and let them speak but with this chatty god that meant never saying anything at all.

At some point, he’d leaned back and begun to watch the black crow that made slow figure eights in the sky, pacing the moon as it moved and helping Hanzo to really recognize that the moon  _ was _ moving quickly. Time was off here. “Hey Jesse?”

_ “...and those damn brownies took my last box of cigars. I’ve looked everywhere for ‘em…” _

Hanzo tried not to roll his eyes too hard. “Jesse?” The man tried again, reaching out this time to nudge the dog in the side. 

_ “...you laugh, but they’re real and they hate me. It ain’t right how they hate me. It’s like the whole damn universe don’t want me to have any nice things…” _

‘Cry me a fucking river.’ Hanzo had to bite his tongue not to voice the thought out loud but  _ damn _ if it didn’t pass through his mind more than once.  _ “Jesse!” _ He finally growled out, nudging the coydog in the side again and sat up.

_ “Jeez, Han. You ain’t gotta act like that. I’m here to help you, ‘n all. Be grateful.” _

“My name is  _ Hanzo, _ and I  _ am _ grateful.” For once, he wasn’t outright lying. Magic food or not, without it he’d be dead. “I just got a question and then you can go back to your--”  _ ‘Bitching,’ _ his mind helpfully supplied, “--talking.”

_ “Ok well  _ Han-zo, _ shoot.” _

“Is there something weird going on with the time here?” The man asked, looking up at the sky as yet again the position had changed and the moon drew ever nearer to the edge of the tarp. Hanzo had learned that he couldn’t use the surrounding mountains to judge the moon’s spot, but the tarp and the Joshua stick never moved.

_ “Nah, time here is just like anywhere else.” _

It didn’t take the crow cawing above his head for Hanzo to recognize that as the bold-faced lie that it was. He grit his teeth, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He couldn’t take on a  _ god. _ Even if he could catch it in a lie, he couldn’t take Jesse on. Not if he wanted to win… The promise of goods being offered was too much to risk taking him on.

The bird cawed above his head and Hanzo closed his eyes to try and remember what air-conditioning felt like. He missed his bed and his  _ fish _ and his post-it note collection. He missed  _ Genji. _

_ ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent, Mei. These people might be Americans but so are you and you’ve got the paperwork to prove it. You have to remember that they do this for a reaction…’ _

His mind locked onto it, the resolve galvanizing into something that even a god could find dangerous as he smiled even more convincingly before. “Jesse?” He called, looking the coydog over. “Sumimasen, kami-sama, could I please have your attention?”

Well that worked. The furry ears perked right up and a wide grin spread over the canine face,  _ “Well sure, darlin’... since you asked so nicely.” _

“Will you make a deal with me?” Hanzo asked, pouring on the honey in his tone and taking lessons from the deception that had lured him into this trap in the first place. “It’s not much, just a bit of a add-on to our previous arrangement.”   
  
_ “Well now, that depends on what you want, sugar. What kinda deal we talkin’ here?” _

“Nothing much. Give me 3 days to outsmart you or figure out your riddle. If I can’t do it in three days then I’ll stay here with you forever.” Hanzo even went so far as to coo, milking this for as much as a man could.

_ “That’s… amenable to me. Shit, I like it Han-zo. I’ll add it into that paper thingy we’re using and sign my X on the line.” _

The trick to successful negotiations was to give them an offer they cannot refuse before you reveal why they should have refused it. Han pulled out the sun-bleached paper and checked that all the clauses were right before nodding and rolling it back up. Then he took out his water bottles, sitting up on his knees to pour them out on the sand. 

_ “Hanzo. What’re you doing?” _ Strange how quickly that sweet accent seemed to disappear to nothing more than a light twang when the god was alarmed.

“I’m pouring out the water… now I’m pouring out the food.” Han chuckled. Sure enough, the sun had begun to come over the horizon so he stood up and started to pull his shirt off to maximize exposure. “You gave me three days to find a way to outsmart you… well, last I checked, you can do everything  _ except _ negate my ability to kill myself. Where’s that pack of coyotes when you need them?”

_ “Hanzo, this is stupid. What are you thinking? Why are you being so stupid? I thought you were an  _ intelligent _ mortal. This isn’t outsmarting me!” _

...but Hanzo didn’t answer. He simply walked in the sand and stretched out his arms to embrace the heat as it came.

_ ‘... Don’t give them what they want, Mei. Your time is too valuable to be wasted playing games with racist idiots stuck in their own heads. Don’t let them force you to color inside their lines or abide by their rules. This whole thing is a game, Mei, and the only way to win is not to play.’ _

 

\--

 

When the Thunderbird came to visit this time, Coyote was not in the mood for his smug face. He had underestimated this human and his  _ deceit. _ The pack that he’d kept back were cycling closer; an ever circling manifestation of his lack of sanity that patrolled the borders of his land. When Coyote became more unstable, the pack became more and more aggressive. With the way the human was walking around in the sun practically  _ baiting them, _ it was a wonder Jesse hadn’t already snapped.

_ “Can I help you?” _ The man growled, a thick cloud of smoke falling from his lips as he let the butt of his third cigarillo drop to the ground. He was not in the mood for Thunderbird’s mockery of him, nor was he willing to admit that Hanzo had  _ already _ bested his contract. No, Coyote stubbornly held out that announcing this stupid plan wasn’t enough to win; Hanzo had to go through with it. 

That ought to cow the human back into listening to  _ reason. _ Hanzo had forced music to run through his mind, some of that weird classical shit that Coyote never listened to and it was  _ infuriating. _ There were no thoughts, very few emotions other than a calm acceptance. It was as if this crazy mortal was actually  _ ready to die. _

“Well,” Thunderbird smirked, crossing his arms and lighting up a tightly twisted joint to smoke instead of the tobacco disaster Coyote preferred, “Trickster, it seems you found someone who is better at your game than you are.”

_ “Ain’t no such thing.” _ The cowboy drawled out, chomping on the end of a new cigarillo as he lit it. Changing his form had happened so long ago that Coyote could barely remember who he was before he was  _ this. _ His canine form had become less true as well; the influence of the white man bled into the landscape and shaped the spirits living there. Thunderbird was lucky; a creature couldn’t simply be warped by the collective mind of the mortals living in its territory. A god  _ could. _

It was as if with the change of the wind, his mind could be different than before. Regardless, Coyote was  _ quite sure _ that the reckless abandon that Hanzo displayed would have irritated him all those moons ago as much as it did  _ now.  _   
  
“Now now, it’s unbecoming to pout.” Thunderbird chuckled, crossing his legs as he popped a couple of nuts into his mouth and chewed on them. It was as if this crow-loving bastard was  _ enjoying _ the show. “He’s playing chicken with a god and  _ winning. _ You’re just upset you didn’t think of it first.”

_ “No, I ain’t.” _ Jesse snarled back, taking a swipe at the figure that easily shocked his hand and stopped him in his tracks. 

When did he start referring to himself as ‘Jesse’ instead of Coyote?

_ “You don’t know nothin’ about me, Long Feather. Nothin’ at all. I’m gonna win this like I always do.” _

“‘Like you always do’, hmm? Well, it’ll be interesting to watch if nothing else.” Thunderbird smirked and popped a few more nuts into his mouth, the bracelets stacked on his wrists clinking lightly at the motion. “It’s been two days already and he’s nearly to his breaking point and so are you. At this rate, he’s going to win.”

_ “Don’t act as if you ain’t stacked this in his favor. I seen that note you gave him, ya cheatin’ bastard.” _

“If you’re not cheating, you’re not  _ trying. _ You taught me that.” Halháta smirked, standing up and brushing the legs of his jeans off. “Have fun trying to win against the suicidal man with nothing to lose… you can lead a mortal to water but you cannot make them drink and the sooner you learn that, the sooner you can both be free. Everything worth having must be freely given but nothing worth having is free.”

_ “Curse you all to hell, Thunderbird.” _ Coyote yelled, enraged and outright attacking the figure as it transformed into a crow once more to glide just out of reach.

“No, Coyote.  _ I _ cursed  _ you.  _ Isn’t that the  _ point?” _

The god sat there for a moment, glaring as the crow flew out of his reach and back down to circle Hanzo below. There were no vultures in his world, Coyote had no patience for the beasts as they annoyed him like nothing else could, but with the large black bird circling it was starting to look like Hanzo would win. For the last two days, for it was the equivalent of two days here and the strain on the mortal’s body would prove it, Hanzo hadn’t ate or drank anything. Jesse had paraded anything and everything he could past the man and despite the salivation and desire, his will remained strong and the moral did not break.

That insult, the suggestion that perhaps  _ Thunderbird _ had more power than  _ Coyote _ here in his own realm was enough to have the coyote pack baying on the nearby cliffs as his patience threatened to break. This mortal, this  _ insect,  _ needed to break first. He’d never lost before and he didn’t plan to start  _ now. _

_ “Hanzo.” _ Coyote barked, his long canine form harsher than the smiling coydog version that usually came. Gone was the medium, glossy chestnut coat speckled with grays. No, the red-tinted predator that came for this mortal was little more than a wild animal just like the rest in the pack.

To his frustration, the music playing blissfully in the mortal’s mind only barely skipped a track before he continued to walk and ignore all distractions. It was as if he didn’t  _ recognize _ that a  _ god _ had  _ deigned _ to speak to him!

_ “How dare you- Hey, Hanzo. What’re you doin’ ignoring me? I didn’t  _ say _ you had to stop talkin’ to me, you know.” _

The subtle quirk in the mortal’s lips and an abrupt shift in music to  _ Pop Goes the Weasel _ was the only indication that Hanzo had even heard him at all. This damned mortal was toying with his life, driving headlong into something  _ far _ greater than he could even  _ dream of being _ and yet here he was, mocking Coyote. 

The beast bared its teeth, growling and jumping forward, threatening to bite the human that didn’t even flinch away from his assault. It only served to further infuriate him.  _ “You keep this up, boy and you’ll win. You’ll get what you were lookin’ for but you won’t even be here to enjoy it.” _

To his great amusement,  _ that _ convinced the mortal to speak. After two days of silence, Coyote had finally broken through. In that few days however, he must have forgotten just how sharp a tongue the man had though because sure enough, Hanzo came out of his silence  _ swinging for the fences. _

“Yeah, but I’ll still win… and you’ll still be forced to know you lost to a mortal for the rest of time. You’re immortal, right? Can you forget such an offense? Especially when you’ll be powerless to avenge it?”

The obvious answer was ‘No’. 

_ “...but ain’t you hungry, Han-zo?” _ Jesse tried again, honey poured over a barely hidden desperation.  _ “I know you Japanese have a thing for suicide, I understand…” _

There that damned dog went making hasty generalizations about things he only  _ pretended  _ to understand  _ again. _

_ “... It’s hard for you, because of your culture and you’re still too new to the world of the supernatural to know any better. You got enough rules already without me heapin’ more on ya… I understand…” _

He’d better not finish that sentence. Hanzo felt his blood boiling and he knew that was  _ exactly _ what Jesse wanted out of him but this time, it didn’t  _ matter _ what Hanzo said. He’d already  _ won  _ this game and all of this was a  _ pathetic _ last ditch effort to try and feel better about himself. Coyote had  _ lost _ and now he was just getting  _ nasty. _

_ “It’s some kinda paradigm shift and you can’t handle it. You’re mortal, I ain’t s’pposed to expect more out of you. I just found it interestin’ but I understand now.” _

Something inside of Hanzo  _ snapped. _

“Now you listen here, you  _ mangy mutt, _ and you listen  _ good.” _ Hanzo’s musical track in his head had skidded to a halt as he turned and pointed a pair of bony fingers at the god, advancing without a fear in the world. Coyote would never admit that he may have taken a step or two back.

“You don’t  _ own _ me, you don’t  _ know _ me, you can’t  _ predict _ me, and you  _ hate it.” _ With each word he stepped closer and closer, infringing upon the deity and his space. “You’re  _ insecure _ in yourself and your place in the world. You’re not even really Coyote any more, you’re a  _ husk _ of your former self. Neither here nor there; not what you want to be but not what you  _ were. _ You can’t go  _ forward _ because you don’t have the resources and you can’t go  _ back _ because nobody wants you there  _ either. _

“You burn bridges wherever you go, you’re  _ irresponsible _ with others lives and of  _ course you are! _ How can you respect  _ anyone else _ when you can’t even  _ respect yourself. _ You gotta bring everybody down to where  _ you’re at. _ Lift them up enough so that they think they’re  _ special _ and then rip it all down so that they match  _ you. _ Heaven forbid someone might  _ actually _ be more special than you are, you  _ narcissistic asshole.” _ Hanzo spat, baring his teeth down at the beast as he loomed over it. 

“Some  _ god _ you are. When you look in the mirror and you  _ hate _ what you see, remember; Shimada Hanzo didn’t fall for your  _ bullshit. _ Remember that name! I want to see you in  _ Hell _ whenever you  _ get there! _ Look me up; find me in the registry!  _ Shimada Hanzo: _ The one that  _ got away.” _

Coyote raised his hackles as the sound of baying canines got closer and _closer._ _“You ain’t got away from anybody_ yet _boy. I’ll get you back. I always do.”_

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Hanzo backed up, hands outstretched as he stuck out his cracking tongue and let his chapped lips crack and bleed to show just how dehydrated he truly was. “You’re wrong, Jesse and you’ll always  _ be _ wrong because you  _ don’t understand _ and you never will. The only way to win your game is  _ not to play.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over the last few months I have been subjected to gaslighting, being spoken down to or patronizing comments, emotional abuse that includes everything as serious as being outright told that because of my spectrum disorder that I am incapable of accepting criticism to as serious to as an entire conversation revolving around ‘letting me down gently’ so I would not be disappointed when I was unable to complete NaNoWriMo in time. Not ‘if’ I was unable to complete it; a week or so before NaNo even began he was already predicting ‘when’ I would fail.
> 
> It has been months of being lifted up and then subsequently crushed back down where-- although not explicitly said it was heavily implied-- I belonged. Months of smiles to faces, megalomaniac episodes behind closed doors, three way conversations with friends where my faults were mentioned. ‘I didn’t consider her to be ‘public’.’ He told me, but it didn’t change the fact that it was a public embarrassment. Taking me and my ‘faults’ out to air them out in front of someone that, at the time, I didn’t know from adam. Months of being repeatedly told that he didn’t ‘like’ to apologize because he was just going to do it again. Any time I nearly managed to convince myself to leave, I’d get cute little messages like ‘I never told you that you could stop talking to me.’ This piece was written with the specific purpose for cathartically unbinding myself and my Hanzo from him. All those shitty things that Jesse says here are words pulled directly from SmutWithPlot’s lips.
> 
> He went so far as to attack my husband for forgetting to take out the fucking trash.
> 
> I told myself to be strong for the readers; keep it together for all of you wonderful people who support this craft but I can’t do it anymore. I’m just not strong enough. I can’t be put through the ups and downs of a serial abuser any longer; I can’t have everything be twisted into something I just misunderstood or clearly did wrong.
> 
> Because I believed him. I believed him for the longest time. I thought I couldn’t write alone; I thought it wasn’t good without having him to edit out ‘the fat’ (which is code for most of my personal voice). I’ve since learned better. I branched out, I got support, I spoke to neurotypical and individuals with BPD alike and the answer was always the same. They got the transcripts of conversations, unedited and raw and they all told me the exact same thing.
> 
> This is abuse, this is not normal, this was not my fault, mental illness is not an acceptable excuse. 
> 
> So that’s where I’m at.
> 
> I sincerely apologize to every single one of you who loved and read Stars or Ouro or both. I never meant to invest you in this and then leave you out to dry and you all must know that I adore you. You’ve become my whole world. I’m so sorry. I encourage you all to continue consuming and enjoying fan fiction here on Ao3 and I hope you will continue to follow my work as I move into solo writing and away from all this unpleasantness. I also hope that you know how sincere I am when I say that I never wanted to have to do this to you all, but sometimes a thing must be done. I have to take care of myself and my mental health. 
> 
> I appreciate and love you all,
> 
> Ladie


	7. Every great dream begins with a Dreamer...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." - Harriet Tubman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your overwhelming support through this trying time. I've been shown such love, I am truly truly appreciative of all of you.

There were the sounds of bare feet on wooden flooring, the chatter of Japanese filtering through  _ shoji. _ Hanzo opened his eyes and stretched out languidly, enjoying the heat bathing his legs as he turned to watch an early spring snowfall fall through the bright pink  _ sakura _ blossoms the castle was known for. He yawned, wiggling his toes as he realized he must have fallen asleep while lying beneath the  _ kotatsu _ at his family’s ancestral home in Hanamura. It was just the way he remembered it, tatami mats laid over the floor and the smell of fish cooking filtering in from the other room. 

It was beautiful here. The warmth of the heavy blanket settled over him and a fresh cup of tea sat on the table beside a black feather. His eyes watched the steam filter off the drink, smiling slowly to himself. This lazy life on holiday to  _ Shiro Shimada _ was one of the simpler pleasures that Hanzo had ever experienced and he let his eyes slide shut. He could stay here forever and never think of anything else again. Why had he worked so hard for so long when these simple pleasures existed?

The soft lull and ease was broken by the sound of tapping, hopping and pecking at the wood of the porch. Finding the tapping was more difficult, the source wasn’t very large and his eyes didn’t want to focus on anything but the beautiful pink blossoms or the dark wood that painted the perfect picture of domesticity. Why would he want to think about anything but  _ here _ and  _ now? _

The tapping sounded again, but Hanzo ignored it. Hanamura had never had a problem with trash birds but that didn’t mean that the occasional one or two wouldn’t filter through. He’d just ask the cook to prepare a bit of fish for the crow and then send it away. The beautiful weather and warmth of home had Hanzo in a particularly good mood.

The soft footsteps, quick and running, came closer and he turned to look at them just as a teenaged boy slid around the corner. Lanky and thin, clad in western pajamas, he fell to his side and catching himself on his hands while feet worked overtime to get away with bright green hair matched only by the equally luminescent grin. He spoke in English but that didn’t strike Hanzo as weird at all. English was well understood and anyone in the castle would speak the language.

“Uncle! Uncle! I give up!” The first teen gasped out laughing as a second one came around the corner in a traditional Yukata. This second teen hit the corner at speed, sliding around it on his  _ tabi _ with experience that only came from years of navigating the traditional halls of the castle.   
  
“Oh no you don’t, Genji.” Listening to the second teen speak English struck Hanzo as a bit more odd with his long traditional hair pulled back into a chonmage and double layer yukata to keep out the cold. “You’re  _ not _ getting out of this.” His eyes flicked up to meet Hanzo’s own for a split second before both hands came forward and the second wiggled his fingers. That was the only warning the younger received before the older darted forward toward him.

Hanzo laughed with them, content to be lazy as he watched the teen dive for the kotatsu. It was a semi-sincere attempt to squirm away from from the older who pounced right after him and jammed wiggling fingers into the intensely ticklish sides. Genji’d never been  _ truly _ the kind to run from any sort of play.

Laughter filled the air, filtering through the silence of snow and the soft bubbling of soup, and another bout of tapping filtered in from outside. That damned  _ crow _ was out there cawing and crowing for attention, as if the constant  _ tap-tap-tap _ wasn’t enough. 

He finally turned and truly  _ observed.  _ Sure enough, a huge crow on the small porch overlooking the courtyard that led toward their bellhouse and zen garden. It made a soft trilling noise and scratched at the ground, looking at him before cocking its head sideways. Hadn’t he seen that bird somewhere before?

“Alright you two,” A deep and stern voice that called Hanzo’s attention back inside to the people in the home. There, in the doorway stood none other than  _ Sojiro Shimada. _ He looked in at the teens rolling around on the ground in a tickle war that was positively  _ tame _ compared to their usual sparring sessions.

The older ended up settled on top of the younger, looking up at their father as he pulled his hands back from tickling. The younger sat up, hands propping him up into the sitting position as they both gave their father the attention he commanded. They had been so close as kids, Hanzo  _ missed _ that.   
  
“Your mother is almost finished with dinner. Both of you, go get washed up.”  Sojiro commanded, waving a hand to the pair of boys and gesturing them back toward where Hanzo knew the bathroom was located. Father always had been a stickler for cleanliness; Hanzo supposed that’s where he must have gotten it.

“Hai, otousan!” Both teens chimed in unison. The older got up first, offering a hand down to his younger brother. Genji took it and allowed himself to be pulled up into a standing position. An uncharacteristic smile filtered over the younger’s face as Genji put an arm around his shoulders for a hug.

The pecking came again, this time the scratching was more of a clawing and the infernal creature was becoming more and more  _ insistent. _ Hanzo looked out to the glossy black creature, recognizing its avian features but only _ barely. _ Where had he seen this crow before?

“Hanzo.” The sound of his father’s voice caught his attention once more, turning back to notice that the teens had already walked down the hall toward the bathroom. The older man was looking at  _ him. _ He could hear his mother’s voice in the kitchen. Hanzo hadn’t seen his mother in so many years; he wondered if her hair  _ still smelled _ like that particular brand of shampoo. Did she still wear those pearl earrings?

The crow trilled more insistently than even before, starting to prance and bounce about at the door as if trying to urgently get Hanzo’s attention. What could be so  _ important _ that it felt the need to drag him away from his  _ family? _

“Hai, otousan?” Hanzo responded, slowly sliding out from under the kotatsu and stood. He straightened his yukata and shuffled the obi back into the correct position. Sojiro was always very particular about the obi and yukata being just  _ right. _ He smiled, pleased to note the beautiful black haori that his father wore over his own yukata.

Trilling didn’t seem to be enough, now it was  _ cawing _ and  _ shrieking _ at his father! Hanzo turned, shushing the creature with a sharp wave of his hand. “Can’t you just  _ shut up?!” _ He snarled at it, shocked when the previously tame creature came up from the ground, hovering and flashing the sharp looking talons on its feet _. _

“Should I get the groundskeeper?” Sojiro asked, having crossed the distance to his oldest son so silently that it nearly startled Hanzo.

“No, it’s just a bird… I’m not sure why it’s acting like this. It’s usually very tame...” Hanzo spoke slowly, not quite sure how he  _ knew _ this.. He’d _ never seen _ this animal before, how did he know it was tame? His mother’s singing in the other room became louder as he felt a headache returning slowly.

“Hanzo, dinner is ready.” Shimada Tsubaki called, smiling from the doorway as she smoothed a hand over her own  _ kimono. _ She  _ did _ still wear those beautiful earrings. He hadn’t seen her in so very long…

At least 18 years. His mother died when he and Genji were 10.

The crow had begun to throw itself at the door, alternating between clawing at the screen and shrieking as it slowly started to rip a hole. Hanzo pulled himself back from the hold his father had placed around his shoulders, stepping back and looking between both of his parents.

By this point, both of the teens had returned from the bathroom with wet hairs near their faces and hands still damp from washing up. Genji looked younger but he  _ had _ to be at  _ least _ 15, right? The older teen turned and made eye contact with his older self, smirking slowly before following the younger past their mother and into the kitchen. 

The Japanese don’t usually  _ eat _ in the kitchen; His family had  _ never _ taken a meal anywhere but the table.

It was then that his eyes slid down to the front of each kimono. With the haori on his father and the wide obiyage and obi on his mother, he hadn’t noticed it at first. Even now, Hanzo was struggling to match the very clear sensations, smells and touches, to the reality that he was very slowly remembering. Their clothes were tied right over left.

Sojiro smiled, though it seemed taut suddenly.  _ ‘ _ Forced,’ his mind provided. That same kind face that had soothed all his fears before was now forcing his world to spin dangerously. Right over left was how you dressed a  _ body _ for a  _ funeral. _ They were  _ dead. _ As his father advanced, Hanzo stepped back again and stumbled over the kotatsu blanket, falling flat on his back on the futon and sofa.

“Hanzo, don’t worry, my son.” Tsubaki cooed to him, walking closer and her features seemed identical to the picture that was kept on the mantle. He realized  _ now _ that it was because he couldn’t  _ remember _ any other way for her to  _ appear. _ She’d been  _ dead _ too long for him to know her in anything but her portrait as she appeared beside his father. They were wearing the same outfits as the painted portrait that hung inside his office right beside the plaque.

“You belong here with us, It’s alright. Come eat some dinner.” That was the  _ first _ mistake any mortal made when visiting the spirit realm. You  _ never _ ate the food. It was only then that he looked down at his own chest just as the crow made it through the screen door and flew up into the face of his father.

Hanzo’s yukata had also been tied right over left.

This wasn’t his home. It had his family, it had his memories but it wasn’t his  _ home. _ America and all its impurities had defined him. When he spoke to his brother in the soft murmurs of secrecy while discussing private matters, they spoke in  _ English. _ When he scoffed at the idea of a God, he considered first the Christian God that was touted all over the South and  _ then _ he considered  _ kami. _ Hanzo had lived long enough in Japan to know the place and know the culture but he’d  _ matured _ in America, for better or for worse.

The crow  _ dove _ just in time to stop the twisting screaming  _ geist  _ that his father had  _ become,  _ throwing itself into the line of danger. He’d never forget the way the regal Japanese features stretched like play-doh under the power of some unseen  _ demon.  _ Hanzo squeezed his eyes closed, gasping harshly as growling and yipping started to filter into his mind, the angered noises of crow and  _ monster _ seeming further and further away. His eyes snapped open to be back in his small fort. Had he ever left? What  _ was _ that? He’d never had a dream so vivid in his entire  _ life. _

There was no time to ruminate on it. Reality came crashing through his consciousness, remembering the past few days with Jesse. The deal,  _ the pack! _ He remembered the coyotes on his trail ever since Jesse had gone MIA, gasping for breath and sat up to get a better view. As soon as Hanzo had barely managed to recognize that the sun had slid all the way under the horizon,, the alpha coyote came  _ crashing _ into the fort and  _ landed _ on him.

Instinct took over as sharp claws dug into his side. He could feel the tearing of skin and muscle, spilling blood from an injury but shock wouldn’t even allow him to  _ feel the pain yet. _ Hanzo jammed his hands into the creature’s ribs and threw it off, flipping over as fast as his injured and exhausted body would allow and only  _ barely _ managed to grab his backpack on the way out. 

“I win, Jesse! I win, I’ve finally outsmarted you!” Hanzo crowed to a god that likely wouldn’t even _hear him._ He hastily threw the backpack on as he flung some of the stones from his fort back at the predators. _“I win!_ Now let me out!”

Hanzo scrambled down the hill, using the momentum to try and sprint up the next rise but the sand had other ideas. His feet lost traction and bare knees hit the gravel-like top layer, filling his skin with sharp flecks of rock that he simply didn’t have  _ time _ to focus on right now. Injuries be  _ damned, _ he had to keep  _ moving. _ His feet worked overtime to make up for the sliding soil that threatened to drag him back down to the coyotes below.

He had won the deal! The coyotes attacking meant that Jesse had finally given up, so why wasn’t he getting spirited out of here?

“What are you, a liar!? You said you’d let me out of here if I outsmarted you!  _ Jesse!” _ Hanzo screamed, voice breaking out of desperation and the hoarseness of dehydration and slurry-abused tissue. Each time he made it a few feet up, he slid back down. White hot  _ pain _ lanced up his leg as one of the coyotes managed to catch ahold of his calf on the down stroke.

Its jaws clamped down around his leg and tore at the muscle and flesh and shaking its head. Hanzo _screamed_ and grit his teeth, panting harshly through his nose as adrenaline spiked in his blood. Armed with the largest stone within grabbing distance, Han curled down on the beast and slammed the stone into its skull with the most _satisfying_ _crunch_ he’d ever _heard._

They say God helps those who help themselves.

He grasped at a handful of sand and threw it into the eyes of the snarling coyotes, looking around for the coydog. Fucking thing had run off  _ again _ and he was so sick of that mutt never being around when he  _ needed it. _ Sure! Jesse had saved his life plenty of times now but how many of those times could have arguably been prevented in the  _ first place _ had it not  _ run off _ for  _ shits and giggles? _

Hanzo was in entirely too much pain to be seriously giving that crow any kind of real consideration. It was a wild animal. What he needed here was a  _ god. _ “What do you want from me? Please? I said please!” He tried again as he sprinted across the rise if sand instead of trying to make it up the edge, dragging his gimp foot now as he wasn't able to put much weight on it. “What do I have to  _ do  _ here to get your  _ attention!? _ I am  _ begging _ for your help! Are you really this  _ bent out of shape _ over this?!”

Jesse wasn’t seriously backing out of his own deal, was he? Hanzo grit his teeth, tumbling forward as he scrambled up another ridge, this one more securely made of stone rather than sand like the last. At the top he saw what might just be his only hope. A large boulder. “You signed a  _ contract!  _ I won, so let me out!” Hanzo called, throwing another rock at the nearest coyote on his trail. They were getting so close that he could very nearly feel the  _ breath _ on his skin sometimes when they snapped at his legs. 

“Look! I’m  _ sorry, ok?! _ Is that what you want to hear from me?! I won and I hurt your  _ fucking _ feelings. I’m  _ sorry!” _ Why wasn’t it  _ answering _ him? The creature had been more than chatty before but now it was acting as if it couldn’t even  _ hear him. _ Hanzo would have thought that Jesse would jump at a chance to gloat--

Wait, what if it  _ couldn’t _ hear him? What if it had left whatever this realm was and needed to be called back?

Hanzo’s mind spun to focus on that as he fell forward onto his chest, flipping over onto his back to kick the coyote jumping toward him in the face with his good leg. That solid  _ thud _ and  _ yelp _ of pain was more satisfying than he’d really thought it would be with the amount of  _ pain _ that being on his back caused. Each time he successfully fought one of those  _ monsters _ off, Hanzo’s chest bloomed with something that felt dangerously like  _ hope. _ He threw another rock before crab-walking up the side of the slope, fighting to get up to the boulder at the top. 

It wasn’t the best answer, it wasn’t even a real  _ answer _ but it was the only idea he had at this point. If anything could help him now it would be a god. The only way to get the help of a deity was to get its attention. How do you get the attention of a deity?

You offered it a  _ sacrifice. _

The problem was that the top of this ridge seemed to get further and further away with every successful attack one of the coyote got off. Each time they managed to grab him or claw him, ripping into him as if he were made of  _ toilet paper. _ ‘Please, this has to work.’

If this didn’t work it would be over. Hanzo would have played chicken and  _ lost. _ He had no way to out run seven coyotes. He could barely walk at  _ all _ right now and Han didn’t want to even think about the hot, wet,  _ slickness _ oozing over his side. He hadn’t thought that initial claw to his stomach was really  _ that _ deep but as his torso seized up around the injury and very nearly crippled him on his ascent, Hanzo was quickly reevaluating the wound. 

It was  _ much worse _ than he’d originally thought. Deep enough that he could see glistening and sliding things that looked suspiciously like  _ organs. _ Hanzo fought the nausea reared its ugly head, dragging a hand down to hold his  _ goddamn side _ in place. He realized as he fought to drag his way up the hill and shove his weight against the huge boulder that in the past few days he had stared certain death in the face so many times that it no longer held the weight it used to. It wasn’t as if the fear had gone away, it was more like the constant anxiety had a new place in his mind rather than being a constant nuisance that served absolutely no purpose. The paranoia was as ever present as it had ever been except now it made  _ sense.  _ It was a  _ survival _ instinct. His insomnia and anxiety had probably saved his life more times than that goddamn  _ dog _ had.

Moving this boulder was  _ significantly _ more difficult than he’d expected it to be, even with the adrenaline rush. 

Hanzo jammed his throbbing back against the stone, jamming both feet against the ground even as the force caused everything from the muscles in his back to the torn flesh of his stomach to  _ scream. _ Pain was just a reminder of being  _ alive. _ If that dream had taught him anything it was that if he got too  _ comfortable _ that something was  _ wrong. _ His first indicator that he was dying should have been that everything was too  _ easy. _

“Come  _ ON!!”  _ Hanzo screamed, shoving against the boulder with all his might as it  _ finally _ began to budge. He rocked it back and forth, each rocking in the sand forced the huge stone to shift a little bit more. The coyotes were coming up the hill just as planned and he only  _ prayed _ that he could get this thing moving in time. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth--

With a final grunt of exertion, Hanzo felt the stone slide free and begin to tumble down the side of the ravine as he fell to lay on his back. White-hot, searing  _ pain _ caused his entire world to go  _ black _ for a few seconds as stars filled his vision but Hanzo wouldn’t let that slow him down. He’d already been  _ blind _ before and it wasn’t about to stop him. A bottle was grabbed from his bag, keys jammed into the side of it to puncture it. He ripped around the edges of the bottle to create a dish, the best he could and he dripped the blood freely flowing from his wounds into it. A creature as lusty for a win as Jesse would appreciate the offering of life when losing it meant Hanzo won the whole enchilada. 

He hazarded a glance over the edge of the hill. The boulder had hit its target and crushed one of the coyotes on the way down. One down, six to go. That was progress. It  _ counted. _ ‘Are you seeing this? I’m helping myself, motherfucker!’ He could only hope that it wasn’t too little, too late. 

There were so many things this shrine was missing. He took a nearby stone and shakily inscribed on it with his own blood as that was the only writing utensil he had available.

_ Sabaku no Kami. _

Was that good enough? Who had he been talking to? He didn’t have a name for the god and he was running desperately out of  _ time. _ Would ‘Jesse’ work? Without the right  _ name _ it wouldn’t  _ work-- _

He grasped his pocket, grabbing inside to pull out the water-warped pamphlet from that tourist trap that felt worlds and entire  _ lifetimes _ behind him and opened it up. As he did, a green coin fell out. There. That was the name.

_ Coyote. _

If anything would work, surely that would be it.  _ Surely. _ It felt right. It looked right. It was the best he could manage in this  _ time.  _ “I won, Jesse. It’s time to  _ pay up. _ These are mortal wounds; I  _ win.” _

Everything was right. He’d done everything  _ right. _ Why wasn’t it  _ answering?! _

The first coyote to make it up the hill went for his arm as he reached down to clutch that bronze link home in his fingers. The pain only barely  _ registered _ as he was so far into shock that the end was a bit like a movie he watched from the  _ outside. _ This was no out of body experience that involved angels or lights or anything that could pass for  _ good _ and  _ wholesome. _ This out of body experience was watching his body get torn apart by a pack of savage animals.

His crow was gone, the  _ god _ had never even bothered to show back  _ up. _ That ethereal moment of being outside his body lasted for but an  _ instant _ as Hanzo came back to his body  _ screaming _ and  _ writhing _ in agony, desperately trying to shove the beasts off of him only to have his hands caught in vice-like grips. Teeth, claws, fur and  _ pain;  _ even the proudest of princes could be reduced to absolutely  _ nothing. _ Just meat in the never ending cycle of coyote eat  _ dragon. _

_ Fuck you too, Jesse. _

Realistically, even if he could somehow make it out of this, Hanzo was already dead. His injuries would require an entire team of surgeons and a miracle to save him and he was  _ lost _ in the desert. There was no way that he could survive this attack without even the ability to call 911 for  _ help.  _ He won the bet and lost the war.

_ Just let go, Hanzo. Come home for dinner. _

“I don’t want your  _ goddamn _ dinner! I want to  _ live!” _ Hanzo screamed against the  _ torture _ and the  _ hopelessness _ of everything. Somewhere in him, it  _ clicked _ and everything narrowed to this moment. He would scream until he finally succumbed, till he was  _ blue in the face, _ because let it never be said that Shimada Hanzo did not  _ fight _ to his last  _ breath. _ “I just want to go home!”

... and for once when he thought of home, Hanzo didn’t imagine the pink sakura trees or the toll of a bell from the front garden. He thought of his brother’s smiling face while they laughed about whatever silly office news there was today. He thought of the way Mei laughed at Genji as he blushed and tried to flirt with whatever passing fancy had caught his eye. Home is where the heart is and his family was  _ here. _ Genji was all that he had left; his employees had become his family.

_ “Mortals are strange. Y’all have this ability to wrench a fragment of peace out of the end of everythin’. Take the ending of your tiny world and  _ accept  _ it. I just don’t quite comprehend… but I guess I ain’t s’posed to. It ain’t my place. There are a lot of stuff that ain’t my place… most of what I said today included. You’re right, Han-zo… you  _ did _ outsmart me.” _

Hanzo’s eyes opened even as the pain of  _ everything _ caused a fog of darkness around the edges of his vision that closed almost faster than he could focus. The coydog was sitting there on the ridge above his head, looking down with the full moon illuminating his red scruff and a glimmer of red near where its right eye would be in the silhouette. He could  _ swear _ that through the iron and  _ agony _ he could just barely smell the scent of herbal tobacco.

His eyes rolled into his head just a moment, just a  _ breath, _ and when Han fought them open again, the dog had been _ replaced.  _ Predators were gnawing on his flesh and devouring his blood,  _ inhaling his organs,  _ and the god had  _ finally deigned to show up in person. _

That was just his fucking  _ luck. _

_ “Y’know, Han-zo. I don’t  _ get _ you. Yer weird even by mortal standards. I ain’t never had nobody build me a shrine like  _ that _ before… and I ain’t never had anybody build it while cursin’ my name to high heaven.” _

He was going to  _ die. _ Hanzo was going to die here to a pack of coyotes while  _ Coyote _ himself pondered what made him different. His mind was slipping into the darkness, still spitting abuse though his mouth could no longer speak it. A jaw clamped around his  _ throat _ and crushed his trachea, the visceral  _ crunching _ of cartilage still somehow  _ audible _ even though he should be long  _ dead. _

He’d read somewhere that the mind kept whirling even for eight seconds after it was no longer connected to the body.  _ ‘This is the longest eight seconds of my life and I have to spend it listening to  _ him.’

_ “Yer a stranger in a strange land talkin’ to a god you don’t believe in or even  _ like, _ praying for an intervention ‘gainst a predator you can’t escape, bleedin’ out on the side of a mountain that  _ don’t know your name…  _ yet you keep the wherewithal to fight becomin’ nothin’ more than a mindless  _ animal _ where so many others have failed.” _

The god hopped off the peak, putting out his cigar and throwing the red, tribal patterned serape over his shoulder. Fire  _ erupted _ from the deity’s hand and the vibrant ruby glimmer shone brighter beneath the wide brim of his hat.  _ “Color me impressed.” _

At this time, it seemed the predators feasting upon what was little more than a  _ corpse _ by this point had begun to recognize the deity in their midst. The beasts sat back, licking their lips free of his now clotting life essence while the god pointed a finger at each of them in turn as if aiming a gun. Six beasts, six bullets in the chamber. Gods didn’t _ miss. _

As his tether to this life began to slip free, Hanzo’s perspective on this otherworldly experience was lost. One moment he was watching from his own eyes and those of the sky, the next everything was dark. Not even a twinkle in the sky or the slosh of water to indicate that there was something  _ after _ this. No sparkling quartz in this ending; no conveniently placed glow stick this time.  _ Nothing. _

_ “Draw.” _

Jesse stood watching each of the coyotes fall in turn, his shining deadeye striking them down as surely as one would strike a flint to start a fire. As each coyote fell, it dissolved away until it was nothing but dust and he reached down to regard the dying executive. Hanzo wasn’t dead, oh no. Jesse was many things, a trickster being one of countless titles he’d gone by, but Hanzo was one of very few people to ever give him a name.

The sky above them began to fill with clouds, sand and storm becoming one as the desert around them melted away. Hanzo had fought the good fight; He finished the race. That meant the deal was done and even if only barely beating, the heart inside that chest had  _ completed _ its end of the bargain. Both of the options on that contract had been fulfilled, he’d outsmarted the trickster  _ and _ learned his lesson... So Jesse grasped the soul and shoved it back down into that carcass, not letting it slide free of its earthly confines as he healed the wounds, both old and new.

One arm came under Hanzo’s broad shoulders to support his head and the other slid under his knees, gathering the survivor in a hold before beginning to step away… but the sound of a soft  _ clink _ caught his attention. The deity looked down and realized that when he’d picked Hanzo up, the man had dropped something on the stone below.

The rumbles became more powerful as the very fabric of this place quaked with the desire to close. It had served its purpose, here in his place away from reality where those who wander could roam and never be truly lost. Jesse bent down once more, carefully plucking up the bronze coin in his fingers to regard it, resting Hanzo’s now peacefully sleeping form on his knees and opposite arm.

‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’

He couldn’t help but spare a chuckle for that as the first couple of drops of rain fell from the sky. The irony that someone as fundamentally atheist as Hanzo would clutch so tightly to something such as this tickled him. 

“It’s not his… he clutches it because it is a link to the only loved one he has left..” A voice from beside called, the crow fluttering down to rest on his shoulder and cock it’s head to the side. “It belongs to his brother. The brother  _ you _ promised to take him back to once he’d learned what you sought to teach him. He’s fulfilled all your clauses, it's time to make good on that deal.”

It was true, Jesse was stalling. He’d never met a human like this one before and he wanted to keep him. Would it do any harm to take Hanzo away to the desert again? Provide him his strange fish dishes and keep him for a friend and confidant?

No matter how many lies Coyote told himself, he knew the truth. There was no world in which Hanzo could live in the desert with him and be happy. Just the last few days of their intrinsic differences had been too much. Hanzo needed to go home to his brother. Jesse gently took the coin and tucked it into his breast pocket before lifting Hanzo back into his arms.

When he moved, the desert moved with him; when he cried, the sky cried  _ too. _ A curse of rage inflicted upon a god, lifted only after the deed was done; a mourning to silence the wicked promise of the next mood swing.

Jesse’s long legs propelled them across the sand as the landscape melted beneath the constant pitter-patter of the rain. Thunder boomed overhead, a calm soak to a parched landscape instead of a sudden and torrential rain that the Thunderbird would bring. This was his land and he knew what it needed.

His legs moved on their own, bringing the soaking pair of deity and man to the standing stones where just days prior an unchanged Hanzo had ate with his brother. Only days ago, when his human companion had been nothing but an ordinary man, he had eaten here and thought himself a man without a home. Now the sun was rising on a new day.

Coyote gently sat Hanzo against the stone and laid his head back to rest against it, guiding rain to wash over his unconscious face and finally scrub the sand and grime away.  _ “Rest up now, partner. Yer gonna need all the energy you got. It’s been nice knowin’ you, Han-zo. Even if I weren’t always a good friend to ya, you was always a good friend to me. Told me what I needed to hear, even if I weren’t ready to hear it. Iffn’ you find yourself in need of an escape, I’ll be here.” _

A red-tanned hand dug around in the breast-pocket of his shirt, taking the coin back out and pressing it into Hanzo’s upturned palm before carefully closing the fingers over the top. It took everything in his willpower to stand back up and step away. It seems you  _ can _ teach an old dog new tricks.

The deity turned around to walk back into the sand and vanishing without even so much as a boot print. It was up to Hanzo now.

The sun rose over the horizon, the eyes beneath Hanzo’s lids darting this way and that at the brightness. The first rays of sunrise struck him directly in the face as the crow flew down to land on his head and start pecking away at the salt-and-pepper hair. He groaned, consciousness slowly returning as he tried to raise his hands to bat away at the creature. His arms felt like they were made of lead, the same lead that was pinning his eyelids shut.

The crow kept pecking. It pecked and it hopped and it generally harassed him as he slowly managed to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds and looked around. The warm summer rain had started to dissipate, vanishing as fast as it came. He ran a hand over his face and bat the accursed animal off.

In and out of sleep, fatigue that threatened to pull him under at any time. It was so hard to stay awake, hard to function, hard to do  _ anything _ right now…

…but anytime he stopped moving for very long, the black crow would return to peck at his skull and cause him pain. At least it wasn’t pecking at his liver, though he supposed that would need to be an eagle.

It wasn’t until the sun was higher in the sky and his clothes had dried stiff on his body that Hanzo began to move, assessing his surroundings. Where  _ was _ he? He began to try and move, squeezing his hands into fists to brace for pain when something distracted him. 

In the left hand, Genji’s coin sat right where he’d gripped it when he’d died.

“Jesse?” He croaked, throat sounding as if it had been put through a meat grinder. The memories of what happened were slowly filtering back into his mind and Hanzo supposed, desperately trying ignoring the sheer horror of experiencing  _ death, _ that it  _ had  _ been put through a meat grinder.

Hanzo realized, as he stood up through a wave of vertigo, that he  _ recognized _ this place. This was where he’d been washed away the first time. This was where it all started. The crow, now proudly toting a bit of his hair in its beak, bounced around on the ground and moved toward something dark sitting on the ground.

He was just  _ crazy _ enough to go and find out what it was. There, on the ground directly below the rising sun was Genji’s backpack… and in a ziplock sitting on top was a phone.

He dove for the bag with a sudden burst of energy, ripping open the ziplock by the side and not even bothering to go through the side in his haste to turn it on. He waited for the familiar jingle of a service provider to finish, rifling through the backpack for another bottle of water and began to drink it down.

_ “911, what is your emergency?” _

 

\--

 

“Do you want to have a funeral?” The grief counselor asked him, a person in his office that Genji hadn’t  _ asked for, _ and didn’t  _ want. _ Dr. Angela Ziegler seemed sweet enough but it didn’t matter how nice or pretty the doctor was, he didn’t want to  _ talk about it. _

“Not… yet. Not yet. I… I don’t want to bury him till the state officially assumes him dead. If that’s today, we’ll talk today. If that’s never, then… well, then you can get out.” Genji’s lips twisted into something that might be considered a smile on any other day but this. Today it almost looked like a sneer, lips curling up at the mere mention of  _ burying _ his brother. That dangerous little shard of hope that Halháta had planted in his chest back in the hospital had grown and taken root. Now whenever someone suggest that he should bury Hanzo without a body to confirm his death, he tended to get  _ testy. _

“Well, you know that I am here to help you whenever you need me. You have my card.” Yes, he had her card. A cute little white and gold thing that proclaimed ‘Valkyrie Clinics and Counseling: Mercy is here.’ The last thing he wanted to think about right now was counseling, what with the  _ piles _ of paperwork he’d have to go through in order to be CEO. Being the face of the company wouldn’t be a problem; Genji had always been charismatic. It was everything  _ else. _

“Yes, yes. Thank you very much for your help, Dr. Ziegler. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.” The sneer twisted into something more like a grimace but to Genji’s credit, he was still trying to be nice to her.

Luckily, she got the hint.

Genji turned around to pour himself another cup full of tea, sipping it sweet and iced as a direct  _ blasphemy _ to his brother’s memory. He had instructed the staff to make sure that he always had a full pitcher of tea because while sugar and caffeine couldn’t  _ quite _ scratch the itch of a drink, it came pretty damn close. Dishonoring his brother with sweet tea was a small price to pay to avoid dishonoring him with  _ alcohol. _

He turned when he heard the knock on the door, smiling despite himself when Halháta walked in still in his relaxed clothes and dusty combat boots. “You know,” His new sponsor snickered, walking right past the desk to pour himself a glass of tea as well and even going so far as to drop a lemon wedge in. “You don’t have to be so mean to her, she’s only trying to help.”

“I know that.” Genji rolled his eyes, taking another decent swig from his glass before setting the sweating tumbler on a coaster. “I just don’t want to talk about burying him, you know? Not yet. It hasn’t been long enough. I’m not sure it will  _ ever _ be long enough.”

“Shouldn’t you do it for the family though?” In this light, Halháta almost appeared to have a red glow to his hair; it was most obvious when the guide walked in front of the window. He looked back at Genji, raising an eyebrow at him. “Or what about his friends?”

“Well, first of all,” Genji snorted, counting on his fingers and raising an eyebrow right back at his sponsor, “I’m the only family he had left. Our extended family was never very close so while they might have  _ come _ for a funeral, they wouldn’t be exactly broken up about not having one.” Genji plucked up his drink once more and sat down heavily in the office chair. “Secondly,” Two fingers were held up while the others still cradled the glass, “Hanzo didn’t  _ have _ any friends to speak of, so it isn’t as if I can just hold a funeral for  _ them.” _

Halháta snorted, bemused if not convinced. “You’re certain of that, are you?” He asked, sipping his own drink. The question hung in the air between them while Genji waited for the inevitable rebuttal. In his time getting to know his new sponsor in the hospital, he’d learned that Halháta didn’t make comments like that if he wasn’t prepared to say something to disprove him right after. 

“Spit it out.” Genji sighed, rubbing his temple with the free hand. 

“Well, it’s just that I happened to notice several individuals on my way up who seemed  _ incredibly _ broken up about his death.” He shrugged, leaning up on the wall by the window and sat his glass down on the shelf nearby  _ without a coaster. _

If Hanzo were still alive to see it, he’d flip his  _ shit. _ That was part of the reason that Genji had treated the office so kindly; it used to be Hanzo’s and Sojiro’s.

“Get a coaster, dude. This is all real wood.” Genji griped, spinning idly in the office chair while he considered it. “I’m sure that my brother influenced the people out there but I’m not sure I’d call them his _ friends… _ They were his  _ employees. _ I think by the very nature of the power imbalance, I’d call them something other than a friend. Can you really be close to someone when you might have to fire them at any time?”

To that, the guide only shrugged. “It makes sense though, when you think about it. Where else would he have time to make friends if he worked all the time? I say you do hold the funeral… At least for those who were close to him here in the corporation, if not for yourself. It’s good for closure.”

Damn him for being right.

Genji nodded and sighed, drinking his tea in the relative silence that filled the room. It was companionable, but also  _ deafening _ because it left Genji alone with his thoughts and fears. Having a funeral for Hanzo almost made his death seem that much more  _ real. _ Denial was a skill he’d recently mastered and every reminder threatened to break his fragile equilibrium.

“Well,” Halháta seemed to be the first to break the quiet, pushing away as he finished the glass of tea before walking back to put it on a nearby tray for dirty dishes. “As much as I enjoy sitting here awkwardly pretending not to look at each other, I should probably--”

He was interrupted by the secretary coming through the door without so much as a  _ knock. _ The mild-mannered Chinese woman had always been very polite, but her hair was askew and glasses were nowhere to be seen. “Mister Shimada, sir, y-you have a call!” She nearly  _ shrieked, _ shaking the receiver at him.

“Mei,” Genji sighed, leaning forward in the office chair. “Is this really necessary? You could have just forwarded it in here--”

“Sir, it’s  _ important! _ It’s Sheriff Morrison, sir! He said it’s  _ urgent.” _ It was clear that the sheriff wouldn’t tell Mei whatever it was and, if the wall full of accolades from Hanzo were anything to go by, she was  _ dying _ to know what was so urgent that the sheriff had to demand to speak to Genji  _ right now. _

“Fine, fine.” Genji got up, walking around the desk with a slower gait than he usually would. His mind was telling him that they’d finally found the corpse. He had a body to bury now, at least, but that didn’t mean he wanted to  _ hear _ about it. Some little part of him would rather Hanzo just stayed  _ lost, _ rather than to find solid proof that he was  _ gone. _

“Moshi moshi, Shimada Genji.” He greeted, holding the wireless receiver to his ear and waited for an answer from the other side of the line.

_ “Kid, we found him. He’s alive and we’re rushing him to the hospital right now. He found your cell phone and called 911--” _

Genji dropped the phone, halfway out the door before it even hit the ground.

“Genji!” Halháta called, running after the newly-appointed CEO as Mei scrambled to pick up the phone from the ground and talk to the sheriff. “What did he say? Where are you  _ going?” _ He asked, not able to catch up to the surprisingly nimble Japanese man as he all but began to run. 

“Attention, everyone!” Mei’s voice came over the loudspeaker, causing the Native American man to look up. “Xiansheng Hanzo has been located! He is alive!” Her elated voice and the subsequent cheer that erupted through the offices located closest to where Hanzo would have frequented put a smile on Halháta’s face.

_ ‘No friends, huh?’ _ The guide chuckled, shaking his head and continuing to walk outside. Hanzo had plenty of friends, difference in power be damned.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things seem to be looking up for me, for all those concerned. Silverxtiger, my rock through this whole thing, has been going through chat logs to isolate and make the proof easy to understand. That'll all be posted along with the final update to this fic. One more chapter guys, one more and I can close the book on this. It's liberating and _terrifying_ and all of you have helped me remain strong. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.


	8. No one saves us but ourselves.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." - Gautama Buddha_

The last time he’d been in a hospital, Genji had been told that his father was dying and that he should help his brother plan the funeral. This time, he’d been told that he should be planning the funeral, only to find out that his brother hadn’t died. The irony wasn’t lost on the second son. He’d driven faster than he’d _ever_ drove to make it to the hospital, nearly running into several other cars on his rush to make it up to where his brother had been brought. By the time he found a parking place, Hanzo had been set up in one of the temporary emergency rooms where he could be seen and speak to a doctor. Getting back there to him was surprisingly difficult because Hanzo didn’t seem to have any identification on him other than the cellphone and his ITIN number.

Genji paced out in the hall, ready to tear his hair completely out at the audacity of someone keeping him back right now. Halháta had come into the hospital some time after he’d gotten there, the ease of parking a motorcycle evened out the fact that the guide wasn’t willing to put his life on the line just to change lanes like Genji apparently was. “Any news?”

“No!” Genji growled, trying _very_ hard not to raise his voice too much because that would certainly get him thrown out of the hospital. The security team was _already_ giving him quite the evil eye from the desk near the door. “They won’t let me get back there until someone comes out to OK it and, big surprise, nobody has shown up yet.” He crossed his arms tightly, the scowl deeply imprinted on the younger Shimada making him look far more like his brother and father than Genji would ever be comfortable admitting.

The guide chuckled, walking closer and placed a hand on his back in an attempt to soothe. “Just be patient. I know that you’re not a fan of hospitals but you have to remember that they’re _helping_ him and they can’t help him if they’re busy fighting with _you.”_

Genji’s only response was an unamused snort, rolling his eyes as he shook the hand off. He would sit down but _hello,_ this was the medical system in America. It was standing room only; with nowhere to sit, the easiest option was to pace… and pace and pace and _pace._

Halháta had learned over the past week that telling him to stop worrying so much would only serve to make the whole thing that much worse. So he just leaned up against the nearest wall and watched, offering a bit of candy from one of his pockets or a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder whenever Genji came close. As his sponsor, not to mention a new friend, the guide wanted to be there whenever something like _this_ happened. There was no saying exactly what state Hanzo would be in when they got in there. Genji would need the support.

“Shimada--” A familiar gruff voice from the door called, Genji recognized the particular way Sheriff Morrison mispronounced their family name. He turned, not even sparing a smile at Jack as he walked straight up to him. 

“Can I see him now? Please?” Genji asked, frowning when Jack shook his head.

“Genji, your brother is suffering from some pretty severe delirium and he has some of the worst sunburn I’ve ever seen. You’ll need to come back after he’s got a room. I came out here because I didn’t want you just waiting without knowing what is going on.”

“I’m not leaving.” Genji spoke stubbornly, crossing his arms. “I don’t care if I have to go buy a deck of cards in the gift shop and play _solitaire_ for the next 8 hours; I’m _not_ leaving my brother. I don’t care what he looks like or how loony he’s acting, I _need_ to see him.”

Morrison watched him with powder-blue eyes, almost as if he could look right _through_ Genji. The quiet was almost too much to bear but he finally nodded, taking his hat and ran a hand through his silver hair. “I should have known you would say something like that…” The man chuckled, nodding as he finally moved out of Genji’s path so that the man could walk back. “It’s room 14.”

Genji gave a quick nod, pushing right past the sheriff to all but _run_ into the ER to see his brother. The last thing he expected was to see Hanzo attached to so many _tubes_ but it didn’t matter because there he was, _alive,_ not even in the ICU or anything! He walked right past the nurse attempting to get his medical history, walking right to the bed and pulled his older brother into a tight hug.

There was a beat where Hanzo sat there, shocked and confused that Genji was there and then… the realization of it all caught up with him and the oldest _sobbed._ “Otouto--” He rasped, voice a broken whisper of what it used to be. Morrison walked in behind the pair, smiling sadly as Halháta and he stood respectfully right outside the door. This time belong to them.

“How… How did you survive out there? They said you’d _never_ make it..” Genji whispered, pulling back and searching the peeling sunburn on his brother’s weary face for some kind of _answer._ Hanzo was peeling and burned and absolutely _slathered_ in burn cream from the doctors but he was still alive. That by itself was some kind of miracle. The fact that he was _coherent_ was another.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Hanzo chuckled, pulling away with a wince. “Careful… my back is all torn up.” He warned, having to compromise with his overly huggy younger sibling and instead squeezed his hand in a reassurance. “That stupid backpack saved my life. It floats, did you know that when you bought it?” The sound of his brother laughing over something as stupid as a floating backpack was honestly the best thing Genji had ever heard.

“No! I just bought it because it was ugly and I thought you’d hate it.” Genji smiled, rubbing away tears from his cheeks that he didn’t remember shedding. “I’m so happy to see you, Hanzo. I was so scared, aniki.”

“Me too.” Hanzo admitted, smiling hesitantly as the nurse instructed him to lay back on the cot and try to relax. “I was scared that the last real conversation we’d have had to include me yelling at you.”

“That wasn’t our last conversation, Hanzo.” Genji shook his head, smiling in a distinctly sadder way now. “Our last conversation was you trying to get me to better myself. You sell yourself short.”

“As endearing as you both are,” The dreadlock sporting nurse in green scrubs chuckled, “I’mma have to ask you to only have one visitor and leave the lights low. Our friend here has had a pretty rough week and he could use a little TLC. We’ve got him on IV fluid but the best thing for him right now is getting some rest. I know they’re looking for a bed to put him in for the night, just to watch him. If all goes well, Hanzo, you might not be staying here very long.”

Genji regarded the nurse-- marked ‘Lúcio’ on his name tag with a happy frog clip to attach it to his matching scrubs-- and nodded. If they thought Hanzo needed to sleep then he’d let him. “Sure, uh… Sheriff, do you have to be in the room?” Halháta had already given him a little wave and shown himself out.

Jack shook his head, “Nah. My work here is done. Now I’ve got to go back to the station and do a write up of all this. You’ll wanna see if you can’t get him a therapist or something… your brother’s got some _crazy_ stories about what happened out there.”

“Some of that is probably the electrolyte imbalance, Sheriff.” Lúcio explained, his hands clicking away at the wall terminal as he recorded the vital signs of his new patient. “His labs just came back and it’s really pretty impressive that he even knows his own name right now. I wouldn’t be too hasty.”

The older brother shot the nurse a thankful smile, leaning back as Lúcio finished his observations and shut the computer before heading toward the door. Morrison might not have seemed convinced but it made Hanzo feel leagues better to know that something _other_ than a god might have been at work out there.

“You know, he’s right,” Genji spoke, waiting till the entire room had gone as quiet as an ER space could be to pull a nearby chair up to the flat-backed cot in the center of the room. “You need to rest, aniki. You look like you’ve been beat to hell and back.”

“I _feel_ like I went to hell and back.” Hanzo croaked in return, his voice _sounding_ as much like a frog as the cheerful ER nurse’s ‘ribbit’ing pen. “You wouldn’t believe what all happened out there, Genji. I couldn’t make this up if I _tried.”_

“I know.” The younger sibling snagged one of the scraped up hands, holding it between his own and smiled. “Tell me later and I’ll believe you. Right now? Sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

“Isn’t that my job?” Hanzo teased, his eyes slipping down without his consent as the weight of _survival_ finally fell off his shoulders and landed at Genji’s feet.

“Not today it isn’t. Today your job is only to rest.” 

...and so he rested.

While Hanzo slept, Genji had begun to empty the battered yellow monstrosity of a backpack. If Hanzo was sure that he’d gone to that place and met that _god_ then sobeit, his older brother had never been the kind to make things up.  At first the talk of supernatural had seemed too strange to _possibly_ be true and the bottles full of dirt could seem like the machinations of a heat-stroke deranged man... but who could deny a still sealed protein bar package that when opened was full of _sand?_ It was enough for Genji to believe. 

The older rested for days inside the hospital as he slowly regained his strength and while the others who came to wish him well. Morrison had even showed up with a basket full of Gatorade and an awkward smile. It was good enough for them; both brothers just wanted to put this all behind them so Hanzo could heal.

The day after his brother had been given a clean bill of health and sent home, a letter from the AA group he was in arrived and told him that Halháta would no longer be his sponsor. He gave his regards but work was sending him elsewhere.  _'I have a new mountain to climb and a new desert to tame. I wish you both the best.'_   Hanzo had stared at the green-gilded black feather included inside the envelope for _days._ At first the new and sudden interest in the guide had seemed odd, but if there was one thing Genji had learned in the last few days it was the value of knowing when _not to ask._ The younger couldn't help but be curious when that feather found it inside Hanzo's kamidana, however, Hanzo never said anything one way or the other and he'd learned to let it go.

Nightmares had been the worst part. Hanzo had _terrible_ nightmares after; dreams that when described would terrify his younger brother to the core. He swore that he had been _devoured_ by coyotes and while Hanzo had always had dreams about the fox-wolves, these were entirely new. After countless frantic drives across town for a week solid, and no less than three arguments about who would sleep on the couch, they both just agreed that it might be best for Han to move in. The fish and Soba seemed to get along well enough.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t need the company.

Going back to work was a different hell entirely. It wasn’t that Hanzo didn’t want to work, it was that every trip through the elevator made him nearly pass out and his office was on the _eighteenth_ floor so walking up the stairs wasn’t possible. When the older swore that this anxiety had saved his life, Genji could only nod and agree that it made sense considering what he’d heard. Watching his brother struggle with the constant fear of every creak or groan was understandable but that didn't change how badly it hurt. His older sibling had always been so strong that to see him so weak was terrifying, Dr. Ziegler said this behavior was normal though. He might seem weak but Hanzo was stronger than he'd ever been. 

It took Hanzo six months of therapy to finally be able to return to the office for an entire shift.  
  
When Genji returned to full-time as well, he did so with a dark blue sobriety coin in his hands. The new CEO had been doing a great job; not a drop of alcohol since that fateful night when they both lost their way. Genji seemed much happier and Hanzo was just glad to be alive. Working from the sidelines let him keep the company moving and the younger had always been better at smiling for a camera. It was a win-win for everyone involved.

Mei had been overjoyed to see him, hanging onto every word Hanzo spoke as he quietly let himself _hurt_ again. The pain was less sharp each time he told the story; the simple fact that Mei genuinely believed him despite being a scientist at heart was another salve on his slowly healing heart. Pale hands in his when she assured the man that she  _believed_ had them both crying like small children again but each tear served to wash away the trauma. That's all he needed, someone just had to  _believe._

It was a year and a half when Hanzo finally was able to attend a meeting and make a deal with a client while standing up straight. It took him eighteen months to talk to someone about _signing their X on the line_ without feeling like he was going to _puke._

For the two year anniversary of the event, Genji threw Hanzo a party. A simple affair in the middle of the work day, a surprise that the whole office was more than happy to chip in with. Hanzo hadn’t felt so _free_ since he was a child; it reminded him that he was _home._ These were his friends, this was his family, this was his strength. 

So when he came up to meet the newest hire, thrusting his hand forward to take the tanned one and smile _up_ at this tall man in cowboy boots and an obnoxious stetson. 

“Hello, my name is Shimada Hanzo. I’m glad that you’ve joined our team.”

A deep chuckle, the slight scent of herbal tobacco on the air as the stranger took his hand and shook it. _“I know what your name is, Sugar."_

 

\--

 

_“Strange things happen in the desert every day, more people drown than die of thirst.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end.
> 
> This whole work was meant to be a metaphor for abuse and recovery... and the fact that it shows back up when you least expect it. Make sure you tune in for the next fic, Molting Memories! Make sure if you enjoyed this to share it with your friends!
> 
> Ladie


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